Alexandre Astruc
At a wake one night in 1945, a group of aged women recall the life of one of their number. Sixty years before, Thérèse was barely 20 years old when she eloped with her boyfriend, Firmin, a blacksmith, to Châtillon, a town in Provence. Here, she makes the acquaintance of the wealthy Madame Numance, who is known for her good deeds. Realising that Thérèse is pregnant and unemployed, Madame Numance insists that she moves into a house on her estate. Whilst Firmin resents the arrangement, Thérèse soon finds that she can exploit the situation, using her benefactor's naivety and generosity for her own gain..
Documentary overview of the life of French filmmaker François Truffaut.
Adaptation of the Balzac story as told by Rosalie, a young girl in love with the idea of her extraordinary neighbor, Albert Savarus, and the lengths she goes to ensure their marriage, even after she learns he is in deeply in love to another woman.
Michel Contat is Emeritus Director of Research at the CNRS, ITEM/CNRS/ENS and a specialist of Jean-Paul Sartre whose novels and theater he has edited in the Pléiade edition and about whom he has written several books. With Alexander Astruc, he made the film Sartre par lui-même (1976) and, with Antoine Burnier, co-wrote the script of Claude Garretta’s TV film Sartre, L’Age des passions (2006). As a journalist, Contat contributed literary columns for Le Monde since 1978, and as an amateur musician, he was the jazz columnist for the magazine Télérama. His most recent books are Pour Sartre (2006) and André Gorz; vers la société libérée (2009).
Part of a 6-film collection called “Grands Détectives” about famous fictional private detectives.
Starting as an investigation, the film begins with the discovery of a murdered young woman. Gradually we go back in time to realize that this crime is altogether the logical continuation of a philosophy of life where neither sex nor death are taboo, and where a lust for pushing limits meets it ultimate conclusion.
A “Cinéastes de notre temps” series episode directed by french film critic and filmmaker Alexandre Astruc, originally aired sometime around 1970.
The film tells the story of the Yugoslav destroyer Zagreb which fights against Germany in 1941, and how some of the crew members try to organise a mutiny to keep fighting when the commander is ordered to surrender.
In June 1944, a young doctor, Chevalier, under the threat of guns, is forced to treat a wounded man in a camp of resistance fighters (maquisards). He recognizes the man, minister of the Third Republic, called Morel by his companions. Carnot, the chief of the maquisards, is suspicious of a doctor who expressly disapproves of the resistance and wants to have him shot as soon as he has treated Morel. Philippe, who is second in command, intervenes in favor of the Chevalier. Meanwhile, peasants denounce the maquisards to the Nazis and the camp is surrounded by the Germans. The camp is saved thanks to Philippe who takes command of the group. He decides to leave the shelter and they begin the long march through the Cévennes to rally maquisard Napoleon in the Vercors...
Galois is practicing shooting in preparation for a duel the very next day. His last night.
A haunting short version of Edgar Allan Poe's famous story about a cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on a victim of the Spanish Inquisition...
"I was interested by the fact that some old guy, after the Parthenon’s glamour, devoted himself in a much smaller temple, where there was no white marble, no nothing. All Greek temples are dedicated to Apollo etc, and this particular one was not dedicated to anyone and is in a place where there never was a city nearby, in a kind of wasteland, in a ditch. But, just by going up a bit –you are in the centre of Peloponissos- on a clear day, you can see the sea on both your left and right. I went back there, at least six, seven or eight times, as if I wanted to think or find myself. So, at the temple in Bassae, I made a short 10 minute film and I was lucky enough to encounter two days of clouds and mist between the columns." —ecofilms.gr (Jean-Daniel Pollet, Tours d’horizons, Editions de l’oeil 2005)
Frédéric, a shy small-town man, falls in love with Anne, a middle class woman married to Didier, who cheats on her with top model Barbara. Catherine, a very determined woman, is secretly in love with Frédéric and in order to keep him away from Anne, pushes him into Barbara's arms.
Anna, twenty-seven, married to building contractor Eric, refuses to live in his wake. Craving independence, she can exist through the art gallery she runs, but isn’t this occupation a mere wholesome distraction? When she meets Bruno and becomes his lover she thinks she will find fulfillment only to realize that she is just another plaything in a man’s hands.
Normandy, second half of the nineteenth century. Jeanne Dandieu lives in a manor house with her parents and their servant Rosalie. She gets to know Julien, a handsome man, whom she soon marries. Her happiness is short-lived as she finds out that not only has Julien married her for her money but he cheats on her as well, with Rosalie to crown it all.
A professor experimenting in suspended animation accidentally shrinks his dog and later, his female lab assistant, when she drinks the liquid by accident and shrinks to 3 inches tall. The professor keeps her in his pocket until he can find an antidote. Sometimes she's naked, too.
Catherine Racan, a young journalist who always puts her career over her love life, is brought in by the police for questioning. They are looking for a doctor who illegally performs abortions and now they are interrogating all of his previous clients.
A twenty year old Anouk Aimée stars as Albertine, the daughter of a bourgeois couple who house a young officer during the Napoleonic wars. Newly promoted, the officer (Jean-Claude Pascal) is quartered by a dull bourgeois couple who treat him with a cold politeness bordering on indifference.
