F as in Fairbanks

On July 16, 1942, Paris police detained thirteen thousand Jews across the city and held them at the Vélodrome d’Hiver stadium for later deportation to concentration camps. This event, known as the Vél d’Hiv Roundup, became a symbol of Vichy France’s willingness to collaborate with the Nazis. This 1986 documentary tells the story of the roundup and French anti-Semitism of the period through archival footage and interviews with survivors and Resistance members.

Recovering after a motorbike accident, a young man becomes the victim of an evil plot by a couple.

What do you do if you are a reporter with a deadline and you are going blind? This French drama answers that question. Arnold is a crack television reporter assigned to cover an uprising in northern Sri Lanka. Recently he has suffered great headaches and his eyes have been tired. Before leaving he has a doctor check him and is appalled by the diagnosis that he is going blind. If he goes to Sri Lanka, the stress could hasten his loss of sight. If he does not go, he will lose the assignment to a rival reporter. Instead of going, he locks himself in his Paris apartment and creates the documentary from a combination of new and old video footage. He suffers through many emotional outbursts in the process. The highlight of his video is a scene in which he, using complex computer-work, "inserts" himself into Sri-Lankan street situation. Though the documentary is excellent, Arnold is crushed when his editor demands the scene be deleted from the film because it slows the film down.

French drama

A French Canadian relationship drama based on a novel by Roger Fournier.

The behind-the-scenes story of French television… This documentary unveils the lesser-known history of two audiovisual decades that have shaped today's television. To explain from the break up of the French broadcasting service ORTF, in 1974, to the creation of Arte, via the birth of Canal+, the life and death of La Cinq and the privatization of TF1 — the succession of political, economic and cultural decisions that have shaped what is known as the “PAF” (French Audiovisual Landscape).