Catherine Deneuve
The story of a young Belgian actor of Moroccan origin who agrees to play the role of Saint-François-d'Assise to put an end to the roles of nice Arabs that are stuck on his forehead in often mediocre films. Getting into the historical figure will represent a real challenge for him; when his father, settled in Morocco, suddenly returns to Brussels with a new wife, and the beginnings of Alzheimer's, he finds himself having to juggle between the expectations of his colleagues and his family.
An account of the life and work of the influential Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), an iconic figure and a godless demigod who dared to enter the darkest depths of the human mind; through his correspondence and his own voice, and that of his family and friends.
French Guyana, not so long ago. Eliott, a young and naive anthropology researcher, goes on an expedition to study the Otopis, a mysterious tribe from the Amazon rainforest. It is also an opportunity for him to get away from the grip of his possessive mother, Chantal de Bellabre, an ethnologist hated by the profession for her biased and cold-hearted practices. Arriving in the forest Elliot realizes the Otopis are not the “good savages” he had imagined. Alcoholic, violent, crooked: they will turn his expedition into real hell in the jungle. Fortunately, Chantal, consumed by remorse and worried about her son, decides to abandon her own expedition and goes looking for him in the jungle, with the help of the not so helpful Lieutenant-Commander Raspailles and his men.
Women were clearly at the core of legendary photographer Helmut Newton's work. The stars of his iconic portraits and fashion editorials – from Catherine Deneuve to Grace Jones, Charlotte Rampling to Isabella Rossellini – finally give their own interpretation of the life and work of this controversial genius. A portrait by the portrayed. Provocative, unconventional, subversive, his depiction of women still sparks the question: were they subjects or objects?
Fabienne is a star; a star of French cinema. She reigns amongst men who love and admire her. When she publishes her memoirs, her daughter Lumir returns from New York to Paris with her husband and young child. The reunion between mother and daughter will quickly turn to confrontation: truths will be told, accounts settled, loves and resentments confessed.
On this beautiful, bright first day of summer, Claire Darling has decided to get rid of all her estate. She’s laid down all her favourite objects on her front lawn for one splendid garage sale. As a horde of curious bystanders and neighbors fights over the ridiculously underpriced antiques, each object resurrects flashes of Claire Darling’s tragic and flamboyant life. Alerted by her childhood friends, Marie Darling, Claire’s estranged daughter, is forced to come back to the family mansion to stop this sale and unveil the reasons behind her mother’s eccentric decision.
Muriel breeds horses in France and runs an almond plantation with her business partner from the Maghreb. A confident woman who spent her childhood and youth in Algeria, Muriel seems to enjoy a life that is both harmonious and fulfilled. She receives a visit from her beloved grandson Alex, whom she raised after his mother died in an accident. He is on his way to Canada, where he allegedly has a job. However, Muriel discovers that Alex has other plans – and a much more dangerous destination. Moreover, his childhood sweetheart Lila also seems to be more deeply involved than Muriel initially suspects. The young man becomes more and more of a stranger to her; the complete change that has come over him is incomprehensible to his grandmother. She senses that her words and any amount of discussion will not help. Finding herself caught in a dilemma between her love for her grandson and her deep concern, she decides to take a drastic step.
A walk through the career of French filmmaker André Téchiné, from his own point of view and that of those who worked with him: Catherine Deneuve, Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Béart, Juliette Binoche and Sandrine Kiberlain, among others.
A mother of two gathers her loved ones to celebrate her birthday in her big house near the Loire Valley. The festivities are disrupted by the arrival of her daughter, who is known for her unpredictable outbursts.
In 1948, French singer Charles Aznavour (1924-2018) receives a Paillard Bolex, his first camera. Until 1982, he will shoot hours of footage, his filmed diary. Wherever he goes, he carries his camera with him. He films his life and lives as he films: places, moments, friends, loves, misfortunes…
When the silent cinema learned to speak, the audience was surprised not only by the voices of the actors and the sound effects, but also by a new element, the music, which, combined with the dance and an unprejudiced imagination, gave rise to a new genre, as important to Hollywood cinema as the western was: the musical. A journey through the history of this genre, from its beginnings to the present day.
Wael, a former street child, makes a living from small scams with his adoptive mother and partner-in-crime Monique. When this unconventional duo swindles the wrong guy, Victor, an old acquaintance of Monique now in charge of a support organization for troubled teens, they have no choice but to become his interim secretary and educator in order to redeem themselves.
A documentary on Yves Saint-Laurent and the legendary fashion designer's final show.
Oscar Mongoût, a gourmet cannibal, burns with love for a neighbor in his building, the very vegetal Miss Carrot. But this passion seems destined to fail: she is vegetarian, while he has a severe case of vegetable phobia. Things take a drastic turn the evening she invites him to dinner.
A captivating portrait of French actor Michel Piccoli, who has worked with the greatest filmmakers of his time and has built a dazzling career of remarkable merit and success, focusing on his work during the 1970s and his professional relationship with Claude Sautet, Romy Schneider, Marco Ferreri and Luis Buñuel.
Gerard is tired of being taken for a good apple by his beautiful family. He leaves everything and starts a garage in a village nestled at the bottom of the Gâtinais ... In front of the garage, there is a lovely inn, run by Barbara: a beautiful woman, disconcerting, mysterious, unpredictable. Their encounter will spark ...
A middle-class house in the middle of nowhere. A council estate in Sète. A mother and daughter. Two childhood friends. A vanishing. Blackmail. A clash between two worlds.
Claire is a midwife and has devoted her life to others. At a moment when she is preoccupied by the imminent closure of the maternity clinic where she works, her life is further turned upside down when Béatrice, her father's former mistress, turns up on the scene. Béatrice is a capricious and selfish woman, Claire's exact opposite.
Emma is about to be the new ballerina. But something upsets her. A secret. A secret liable to undermine what she has spent a whole life on.
Laurent is seeking a path in life after living his childhood and teenage years in laziness. He has a conflictual relationship with Rodolphe, his father, and both are too emotional to express their mutual affection. Despite the women of his life hanging around him , Rodolphe has but one obsession: meeting Marguerite again, the first love of his life.
As a poster boy for hedonism, his whole life was one big party. A journalist, filmmaker, director, producer, actor, novelist, ladies' man and prolific father... Roger Vladimir Plémiannikov, a.k.a. Roger Vadim, tried everything until his death in 2000. Portrait of a man at the cutting edge of fashion and trends.
Laurent Achard set up his camera on the set of Paul Vecchiali’s film Le Cancre to capture the director’s creative power. Although Vecchiali’s precision is impressive, Achard also shows moments where his collaborators’ input is essential. Under the director’s eye, the stars are becoming actors again, and Achard revives the heritage of Vecchiali’s '70s and '80s production studio Diagonale.
The film tells the story of Malony and his education as he grows from a six-year-old into an 18-year-old. A minors’ judge and a caseworker work tirelessly to try to save the young offender.
Before Fifty Shades of Grey and beyond the limits of desire, Nucleus Films draw back the veil on Fifty Shades of Erotica. Now, in the privacy of your own home and as a consenting adult, you can succumb to trailers from carnal classics like The Libertine, Story of O, Venus In Furs, Cruel Passion, Gwendoline, Education Anglaise, Dressage and many, many more as you enter the timeless world of fetishistic fantasy, deviant desires and pulsating pleasure! Submit yourself to the salacious sensations and cruel caresses of this mind-blowing collection of curated carnality, the rare and raunchy, re-mastered from the finest available materials. So, lie back, relax and prepare to enter the sensual world of Fifty Shades of Erotica...
God lives in Brussels. On earth though, God is a coward, with pathetical morals and being odious with his family. His daughter, Ea, is bored at home and can't stand being locked up in a small apartment in ordinary Brussels, until the day she decides to revolt against her dad...
In 1976 in Nice, Agnes, the daughter of the owner of the Palais de la Méditerranée, falls in love with an older lawyer.
Antoine is a musician. The forties, he suddenly decides to end his career. After a few days of wandering, he gets a job as a janitor. Mathilde lives in the old building in the east of Paris where he takes office. This is a young retiree, generous and involved, who divides his time between his associational activities and the life of the condominium. One night, she discovers a disturbing crack on the wall of his living room. Gradually, his anxiety grew to turn into panic and if the building collapsed ... Slowly, Antoine befriends the woman he feared to see slip into madness. Between slips and concerns, both form an awkward tandem, humorous and solidarity which will, perhaps, through this bad patch.
This portrait of the world-famous French director based on his personal correspondance reveals the little known insurgent side of his personnality. Featuring interviews with close collaborators, friends and family, this definitive documentary tells his intimate story, from the streets of Paris to the filmmaking accolades and high profile marriages at the height of his career.
Deneuve plays sassy grandmother Cathy who takes to the road after being betrayed by her lover and learning her business is on the verge of bankruptcy on the same day. During a weeklong odyssey across France, she spends time with a grandson she hardly knows and reconnects with her past as former Miss Brittany through a reunion for former beauty queens.
In the autumn of 1810, the French forces of Marshal Masséna are invading Portugal and are temporarily halted by the Anglo-Portuguese army under Viscount Wellington at the Battle of Bussaco. As a bitter winter approaches, Wellington withdraws his troops towards the fortifications he has prepared in secret at the Lines of Torres Vedras. Using a scorched earth defence, he forces the inhabitants to evacuate the land in front of the Lines and destroys all supplies which could be useful to the French. The film illustrates these dramatic events by a series of vignettes which show the effects on combatants, both regular soldiers and guerrillas, and on the civilian population.
The true-life, stranger-than-fiction tale of eighteenth-century Greek pirate turned merchant Ioannis Varvakis, who rose from humble beginnings to become the head of one of the largest mercantile empires in Europe.
Asterix crosses the channel to help second-cousin Anticlimax face down Julius Caesar and invading Romans.
Passionate romance, brutal treachery, and selfless nobility are set against the background of Napoleon’s 1810 invasion of Portugal in Valeria Sarmiento’s intimate epic.
From Paris in the 1960s to London in the first decade of the third millennium, Madeleine and her daughter Véra flit from one amorous adventure to the next, living for the moment and taking all the opportunities that life offers. But not every love affair is without its consequences, its upsets and its disappointments. As time goes by and gnaws away at one’s deepest feelings, love becomes a harder game to play.
An interview with film director Roman Polanski conducted during his period of house arrest, discussing his life and work.
A writer suffering from a lack of inspiration sneaks his way into the lives of a star television journalist and his lead ballerina daughter to write, unbeknownst to them, a non-authorized biography. Meanwhile, in Brittany, twenty-year-old Bruno, who lives with his parents, doesn't yet know the consequences that this story will have on his existence...
A man asks himself about the image of women who are offered for his gaze. A documentary about the image of women in fashion, film, and life.
This documentary examines the life and work of the late fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent, recounting how a frail prodigy prone to bouts of depression became an icon of the fashion world. Initially appointed head of the House of Dior in 1957 before growing into a globally recognized designer in his own right, Saint-Laurent overcomes his struggles with substance abuse, accumulating a large art collection alongside his lifelong personal and professional partner, Pierre Bergé.
Paul Exben is a success story – partner in one of Paris's most exclusive law firms, big salary, big house, glamorous wife and two sons straight out of a Gap catalog. But when he finds out that Sarah, his wife, is cheating on him with Greg Kremer, a local photographer, a rush of blood provokes Paul into a fatal error.
No one in recorded history has suffered a fate quite like Lafayette. Once, he was the most famous man in the world; today, few people know who he was or what he accomplished. Ever since he died, there has been a conflict over the true meaning of his accomplishments. It is time to re-evaluate his crucial role in the establishment of America's democracy.
As she does every morning, Lucie takes advantage of her journey to work to lose herself for a while in the pages of a good book. And as she does every morning, she joins her colleagues at the office with a smile. It's a working day just like any other. Then suddenly all activity in the office stops. All attention is turned towards the window of the opposite building opposite and abanner reading: Man Alone. Is it a hoax? A cry for help? Everyone has his own interpretation, and will try, by any means possible, to discover what lies behind this mysterious message.
In the 1950s, Louise left her husband when their children were still little. She was never heard from again. Her daughter Martine stayed in the small seaside town, where she became a doctor. Martine's daughter, Audrey, a thirty-year-old independent woman, returns to visit her parents. By chance, she finds a notebook that belonged to her grandmother, a diary that may at last explain her departure. Will it reveal the things left unsaid, that have altered the relationships within the heart of the family ever since? In it, will Audrey find answers to the questions that she is asking herself about her own future?
The Girl on the Train is a 2009 French drama film directed by André Téchiné. Jeanne is a young woman, striking but otherwise without qualities. Her mother tries to get her a job in the office of a lawyer, Bleistein, her lover years ago. Jeanne fails the interview but falls into a relationship with Franck, a wrestler whose dreams and claims of being in a legitimate business partnership Jeanne is only too happy to believe. When Franck is arrested, he turns on Jeanne for her naivety; she's stung and seeks attention by making up a story of an attack on a train. Is there any way out for her?
When their regal matriarch falls ill, the troubled Vuillard family come together for a hesitant Christmastime reunion. Among them is rebellious ne'er-do-well Henri and the uptight Elizabeth. Together under the same roof for the first time in many years, their intricate, long denied resentments and yearnings emerge again.
July 2006. Another war breaks out in Lebanon. The directors decide to follow a movie star, Catherine Deneuve and a friend, actor and artist Rabih Mroue;, on the roads of South Lebanon. Together, they will drive through the regions devastated by the conflict. It is the beginning of an unpredictable, unexpected adventure...
Robert, a fan of three French actresses is a bald-headed, potbellied man on the fifties, but fully devotes himself to them, and sometimes works for them without being recognized. But those star actresses find him a simple stalker fan and make fun of him, but later recognize he is sincere and genuine.
A City Runs Through the Festival is an anatomy of the Festival through the eyes of its own audience.
When Camille's son was killed in a car accident, the devastating loss proved too much for emotionally fragile mother to bear. Now desperately clinging to any reminder of the son she held so close to her heart, Camille becomes increasingly fixated on Frank - the young man who was not only her child's best friend, but the one who was responsible for the tragic accident that took his life as well. At first, Frank is receptive to Camille's advances. It's not long, however, before the pair's scandalous relationship prompts many of Camille's friends to distance themselves from the increasingly unstable woman. Later, as Camille's obsession with Frank turns menacing, the relationship between grief-stricken mother and her guilt-ridden lover begins to take on ominous undertones.
In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.
In France, the single translator Diane Siprien adopts an Asian baby named Liu-San in a foundation directed by Sybille Weber. Years later, a weird mark appears on the boy's chest and Diane and Liu share their dreadful nightmares. Diane is assigned for a three-day job in Germany and she leaves Liu with her friend Sybille. However, while going to the airport, Diane finds Liu hidden in the backseat and startles with an eagle flying toward the windshield, crashing her car. Liu falls into a coma and his digital recorder records the boy speaking in an unknown dialect. When Diane searches the translation and the origins of Liu, she is surrounded by mysterious murders. She discovers that the dialect is from the mystic Mongolian Tseven tribe and that Liu is a powerful Observer; further, he is in danger, threatened by sorcerers that need the boy for their Council of the Stone..
A story of a cabaret in Nice called "Le perroquet bleu" ("The blue parrot"). The innkeeper, Gabriel, dies at the beginning of the movie and leave his business to his godchildren : Nino and Marianne, whom father had been taken under Gabriel's wing when he was fifteen years old. After the reading of the will, the fate of "The Blue Parrot" is in their hands.
Eugenia is the queen of an imaginary European country. When her husband dies, quite unexpectedly, the country is left without a king. According to the law, the new king needs to be married so that leaves out the eldest son. Her youngest son, Prince Arnaud is married to the lovely Armelle and they have two young children. They become the future rulers of the kingdom.
Two men, fifty years young, seduce younger women at the Cannes Film Festival and are quite successful as long as there are no youngsters among them.
As a reinvention of the documentaries made by Pasolini, Vezzoli pushes the public of a fictitious italian tv program to talk about love and relationships
In Tangiers where he traveled for his work, a man finds the woman he loved, and attempts to revive their romance though it ended some 30 years earlier.
Nora Cotterelle, a woman in her 30s is caring for her ill father, Louis Jenssens. While Nora tries to present a facade that all is well with her life, she is twice divorced and has a son, Elias, whose father is dead. Nora's present relationship is not going well, and she is soon to marry a businessman, while Elias is becoming increasingly withdrawn. A parallel storyline follows her former lover and second husband, Ismaël Vuillard, a musician, with whom she had lived for seven years. He is given to strange behaviour, and as a result he has been committed to a mental hospital, from which he is planning to escape. Nora learns that her father's digestive problems are actually cancer, and facing her father's death, Nora desperately seeks out Ismaël to ask that he reconnect with Elias, but he has mixed feelings about adopting her son. Moreover, he has met Arielle, another patient.
The story of Napoleon Bonaparte's grandniece, the famous Princess Marie, her friendship and her work with Sigmund Freud.
Updated adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos' classic 18th Century tale of seduction, betrayal and revenge set in the modern 1960s world of Parisian high society. The beautiful Madame de Merteuil seeks vengeance against her ex-lover Gercourt when he becomes engaged to her young goddaughter, Cécile.
A meditation on civilization. July, 2001: friends wave as a cruise ship departs Lisbon for Mediterranean ports and the Indian Ocean. On board and on day trips in Marseilles, Pompeii, Athens, Istanbul, and Cairo, a professor tells her young daughter about myth, history, religion, and wars. Men approach her; she's cool, on her way to her husband in Bombay. After Cairo, for two evenings divided by a stop in Aden, the captain charms three successful, famous (and childless) women, who talk with wit and intellect, each understanding the others' native tongue, a European union. The captain asks mother and child to join them. He gives the girl a gift. Helena sings. Life can be sweet.
Documentary about legendary Paramount producer Robert Evans, based on his famous 1994 autobiography.
A behind-the-scenes look inside Yves Saint Laurent’s legendary atelier during the creation of his final Spring line.
People and life can be cruel, and in their face, Fannette is cool: toward an old acquaintance, to her daughter, to colleagues. Beneath the surface, she roils with passion for a lost love, Philippe. She watches "An Affair to Remember" again and again, and when she receives a letter from Philippe asking her to meet him atop the Empire State Building, she swoons. She's writing a book on an aged painter, so she organizes a trip to New York ostensibly to secure photographs of some of his pieces. The publisher assigns her a photographer, Matt, on the surface spontaneous and flip, but also aggressive about his attraction to her. Will she be with the one she loves? Will she smile? Written by
The wildly popular British television show Absolutely Fabulous gets a Francophonic makeover with this film version directed by Gabriel Aghion. In this go around, Josiane Balasko and Nathalie Baye play the incorrigible Eddie and Patsy, who leave no impulse unenacted and no lust unsated -- be it for sex or the latest in designer clothing. Waking up from a night of drunken debauchery, the two dip right into a feast of champagne and caviar, much to the irritation of Eddie's elegant mother and her resentful daughter. As Eddie stretches an appalling pair of leopard-print leotards (complete with matching shoes, purse, and hat) over her massive rear end, she and Patsy learn of a handsome young Rollerblading delivery boy who quickly becomes the object of their lust. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival.
An alternate longer TV version of Pola X entitled Pierre ou les ambiguïtés, edited in three one-hour episodes was shown for the first time on September 24, 2001 on Arte German-French TV channel. The original “Pola” title is the acronym of “Pierre ou les ambiguïtés”. The episodes were titled 'A la lumière', 'A l'ombre des lumières' and 'Dans le sang'. The new sequences explore the dreams of Peter and his relationship with his mother, sister and fiancée. In an interview with Jacques Morice, Carax stated that "it is not an 'extended version' or a 'final version' of the film Pola X, but a different proposition for television."
The comfortable daily routines of aging Parisian actor Gilbert Valence, 76, are suddenly shaken when he learns that his wife, daughter, and son-in-law have been killed in a car crash. Having to take care of his now-orphaned grandson, he struggles to go on with his lifelong acting career like he's used to. But the roles he is offered -- a flashy TV show and a hectic last-minute replacement in an English-language film of Joyce's Ulysses -- finally convince him that it's time to retire.
Poucet is a kid from a family of numerous children. The parents, too poor to feed them, decide to abandon them in the forest. Their, the brothers try to find their way out making fantastic encounters. This film is based on the French fairy tale "Le petit poucet" by Charles Perrault.
In Peter Hyams's adaptation of the famous Alexander Dumas story The Three Musketeers, the young D'Artagnan seeks to join the legendary musketeer brigade and avenge his father's death - but he finds that the musketeers have been disbanded.
Although at first sight this might look like a simple ‘making of DANCER IN THE DARK’, the later developments in the film reveal the whole drama of Lars von Trier’s inner life during the shooting process. All his doubts and insecurities in collaborating with the crew and actors - especially actresses - are exposed. The biggest drama started when Björk walked off the set. Nobody knew whether she would be back or not. Admitting that he feels threatened by women, who can ‘make him feel embarrassed’, the director gives this documentary the nature of a personal diary. When he discusses the importance, purpose and beauty of the use of a hundred cameras in a certain sequence or the meaning of the Dogma 95 rules, the audience is witnessing the process of the artist’s search. Is the pain that the director went through during the shooting really visible in the final result, as Lars von Trier claims in this film? (from: http://www.idfa.nl/)
Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, escaping life's troubles - even if just for a moment - by dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) is on his deathbed. Looking at photographs brings memories of his childhood, his youth, his lovers, and the way the Great War put an end to a stratum of society. His memories are in no particular order, they move back and forth in time. Marcel at various ages interacts with Odette, with the beautiful Gilberte and her doomed husband, with the pleasure-seeking Baron de Charlus, with Marcel's lover Albertine, and with others; present also in memory are Marcel's beloved mother and grandmother. It seems as if to live is to remember and to capture memories is to create a work of great art. The memories parallel the final volume of Proust's novel.
At the altar where he is marrying Séverine, the groom, Antoine, gets his first glimpse of her mother, Léa, and suffers what the French call a coup de foudre which we know as love at first sight.
June 1946: Stalin invites Russian emigres to return to the motherland. It's a trap: when a ship-load from France arrives in Odessa, only a physician and his family are spared execution or prison. He and his French wife (her passport ripped up) are sent to Kiev. She wants to return to France immediately; he knows that they are captives and must watch every step.
The story of a woman that remained distracted for a long time from her life, from the passions that made her feel alive. The importance of true love is compared with the material value of diamonds. Only one truly lasts forever. She's got to find the thing that values most for her, the thing that gives psychical stability and real happiness again to her life.
At her son's funeral, Solange, a lawyer famous for losing hopeless cases, agrees to defend René, her son's age, accused of murdering his wealthy aunt, Jeanne, who's part of the Franco-Belgian Psychoanalytic Society, known for odd views and methods. She reads Jeanne's journal, documenting René's criminal tendencies. Solange believes him innocent, manipulated into the murder or framed. Odd psychiatrists turn up, including Georges Didier, who runs FBPS, and his rival, Christian, who believes crime originates in a story's taking hold of a person. After the verdict, René and Solange's relationship changes, Georges and his society commit a bizarre act, and the police record Solange's story.
Pierre's the photographer, Gilles is the painter. This video follows the pair of French artists for one year as they team to concoct their patented bizarre and beautiful imaginary world in pictures, often conflating gay, Hollywood, and religious iconography. They've attracted as models such international celebrities and stars as Michael Jackson, Nina Hagen, Madonna, Boy George, Mark Almond, Catherine Deneuve, Rupert Everett, Jean-Paul Gaultier, and Prince. Some critics dismiss their work as simply kitsch, while some of the world's top art galleries have held shows celebrating the duo's work.
In the middle of the night, someone brings Ivan's body home to his wife and his sad-faced, jug-eared son. Through flashbacks, the film discloses the relationships among Ivan and his brother Alex, a cop with a cleanliness fetish; siblings Juliette and Jimmy, Ivan's partners in a seedy nightclub; the love triangle of Alex, Juliette, and Marie, a professor of philosophy; and of Alex and his nephew, Ivan's dour, stoic son. Ivan's death changes every relationship.
Françoise Dorléac et Catherine Deneuve were nearly twins. Only 18 months separated these sisters who liked to say “Both of us could make the ideal woman”. Françoise Dorléac created her own style, unique even in France : a rare mix of elegance, humor, glamour. This is a touching portrait of an actress whose glory was cut short, seen through the eyes of her sister Catherine.
Monsieur Cinema, a hundred years old, lives alone in a large villa. His memories fade away, so he engages a young woman to tell him stories about all the movies ever made. Also a line of movie stars comes to visit him giving him back the pleasure of life - but amongst them there are also some young students only striving after his money for the realization of their film projects. The two stories - Monsieur Cinema's and the young people's life - are told in parallel until they come together in the end when the old man plays a role in the film made by the students.
The journey of Michael Padovic, an American professor who arrives with his wife, Helene, at a Portuguese convent where he expects to find the documents needed to prove his theory: Shakespeare was born in Spain; not in England.
Agnès Varda's documentary portrait of her late husband, Jacques Demy. A companion piece to her Jacquot de Nantes.
In 19th century, a disillusioned priest helps a young boy drifter who's a chess wunderkind to move on up in life and social structures using his talent. Years later, he's a success, but game of life and love has higher stakes than chess.
Old woman Berthe leaves her house to live in her daugter Emilie's one. Emilie and her brother Antoine have fallen out three years ago and have not seen each other since, but Emilie invites him for Christmas. Memories will come up, and will be depicted both Berthe's destiny and the strange relationship between Emilie and Antoine.
Agnes Varda's documentary of the celebrations arising from the 25th anniversary of her husband Jacques Demy's film Les demoiselles de Rochefort.
Documentary overview of the life of French filmmaker François Truffaut.
Commissioned by Amnesty International for its TV program Ecrire contre l’oubli (Write Against Oblivion), Akerman’s contribution in the form of a poem is dedicated to Febe Elisabeth Velasquez, an El Salvadorian trade unionist and mother of three, murdered by the US-backed junta. Deneuve emerges from the calm of a Parisian night to deliver a heartfelt plea for remembrance of Febe Elisabeth’s too short life. Sonia Wieder-Atherton’s cello weeps appropriately.
In 1960, in a coastal town near to Nantes, Jean Ripoche lives with his wife Liliane, their four children and Liliane’s father Lucien. Jean divides his time between running his plumbing business and making a float for the Nantes carnival. The Ripoche’s ordered lives are thrown into turmoil when Jean’s former friend, Yvon Legualoudec, returns to the town – with his black wife Annabelle and their three children. Before he disappeared twenty years ago, without saying a word, Yvon was Jean’s rival for Liliane’s affections. As bitter memories resurface, the relationship between Jean, Yvon and Liliane become strained.
Contre l'Oubli (Against Oblivion) is a compilation of 30 French filmmakers, Alain Resnais and Jean Luc Godard among them, who use film to make a plea on behalf of a political prisoner. Jean Luc Godard and Anne Marie Mieville's film concerns the plight of Thomas Wanggai, West Papuan activist who has since died in prison. The short films were commissioned by Amnesty International.
A camera crew follows Helmut Newton, the fashion and ad photographer whose images of tall, blond, big-breasted women are part of the iconography of twentieth-century erotic fantasy. He's on the go from L.A., to Paris, to Monte-Carlo, to Berlin, where he was a youth until he escaped from the Nazis in 1936. We see him on shoots, interviewing models, and discussing his work.
France is a haughty, bourgeoise wife who is abandoned at the side of the road by her husband after a vicious quarrel. She meets Charles, a doctor. The meeting of the two strangers is the focus of the film, along with their encounters with characters at a truck stop.
Jeanne Quester is a psychologist-on-the-airwaves in a radio station. She got a raw deal when she was a child.
Amanda Weber is a museum employee. Her nephew, Victorien, who feels that wild animals should not be kept in zoos, while hitchhiking saw a mysterious bus with 50 dead tourists that later was found by autorities at the bottom of a lake. When Victorien gets in very serious problems due to what he saw Amanda seeks to find out what happened and soon also becomes a target.
In the woods, a 13-year-old boy is grabbed by an escaped convict and told to bring money later that day. The boy does as he's told, only to be attacked by the convict's partner. A murder ensues, and through happenstance, the murderer and the boy's mother form an alliance. All this takes place in four days during which the boy has his first communion, his separated parents face each other amidst grandmother's hopes they'll reunite, the grandfather just wants to go fishing, the school's chaplain complains about the boy's behavior, and the convicts' shared girlfriend comes, gun in hand, to help them escape to Tangier. The mother's surprising decisions complete the story.
Let's Hope It's a Girl is a multifaceted exploration of the pointlessness of sexual stereotypes. Liv Ullmann is a countess who, after her divorce, takes over the family farm. Realizing that she can't rely on the patriarchal society structure for assistance, Ullmann runs the farm herself with the help of her female servants and relatives. When the Count (Philipe Noiret) comes back into her life, he and his male buddies find themselves outclassed by the expertise of the ladies.
A tribute to the late, great French director Francois Truffaut, this documentary was undoubtedly named after his last movie, Vivement Dimanche!, released in 1983. Included in this overview of Truffaut's contribution to filmmaking are clips from 14 of his movies arranged according to the themes he favored. These include childhood, literature, the cinema itself, romance, marriage, and death.
Claire's handbag is stolen. It contained a letter written ten years previously by the man who is now the French President. In the letter he urges his pregnant mistress to have an abortion. Claire immediately alerts the President's men. From that moment, the machinery of state swings into action.
In 1911, a willful and determined man from peasant stock named Charles Saganne enlists in the military and is assigned to the Sahara Desert under the aristocratic Colonel Dubreuilh.
Miriam promises her lovers the gift of eternal life, but John, her companion for centuries, suddenly discovers that he is getting old minute by minute, so he looks for Dr. Sarah Roberts, a researcher on the mechanisms of aging, and asks her for help.
Charlotte (Catherine Deneuve) flies to East-Africa in order to build a touristic center near the Lake Williams where the pygmys live. Here she meets her husband Victor (Philippe Noiret), a devoted conservationist who left her three years ago to live in the jungle. Can you imagine his enthusiasm when she arrives at the conclusion that the ideal place to built this holiday resort is his kitchen garden?
Martin Terrier wants to quit his job as a hired hitman, but his organized crime employers are unwilling to see him turned out to pasture, Terrier knows too much, and he is still useful to the organization. He escapes to the countryside where he meets Claire, and the two soon fall in love. Back in Paris to confront his employers, Terrier learns that they've stolen all his money from the bank. They give him an ultimatum—do one last job for them and he gets his money and his freedom...
Two men break out of prison; a rival gang ambushes them. One is mortally wounded and tells the other, Mickey, to take him to the estate of a retired robber, Noel, who lives in comfort with his lovely and beloved wife, Nicole. The man dies, and Mickey, a menacing hothead, demands money of Noel. A few days later, Mickey returns to the estate, shoots up a dinner party and threatens them again. Noel sends Nicole to an hotel and goes to his old gang to help him hunt down the dangerous Mickey. Mickey has other problems, too, including heartache for a daughter he hardly knows. Young, eager cops tail Nicole, and all are on a complicated collision course.
Helene, a pill-addicted anesthesiologist, is mourning the death of her boyfriend when, through a car accident she causes, she chances to meet the lethargic Gilles, a young man who lives for free at his mother's hotel. Gilles pursues Helene romantically, and she eventually softens up. Gilles, however, is also devoted to Bernard, a petty crook who revels in mugging gay men. All three struggle with relationships that seem to be going nowhere.
The co-founder of the Gamma press agency, Raymond Depardon, created this documentary of press photographers in Paris and their subjects by following the photographers around for one month, in October, 1980. In-between long hours waiting for a celebrity to emerge from a restaurant or a hotel, boredom immediately switches to fast action as the cameras click and roll when the person appears. The reaction to the gaggle of photographers is as varied as the people they often literally chase all around town. While some of the celebrities, such as Jacques Chirac who was mayor of Paris at the time, are perceived as comical caricatures, others are shown simply going about ordinary pursuits - including Catherine Deneuve, Gene Kelly, and Jean-Luc Godard.
A woman invites all four men she loved in her life for the dinner of New Year's Eve at the same time and unites them all in her house...
In occupied Paris, an actress married to a Jewish theater owner must keep him hidden from the Nazis while doing both of their jobs.
At forty years old, Martin Belhomme leads a quiet life with his wife and two children. One day, he falls hopelessly in love with Eva, a cabaret singer. He decides to follow her to Amsterdam. From then on, his life becomes very eventful!
Françoise has gone into business seducing men whose wives want to divorce them, and who need incriminating evidence against them. In addition, she has a little blackmail operation going on on the side with politicians who can't afford a scandal. She got started on this business after she was raped, and hasn't looked back since. Now the police are on her trail, and she avails herself of the services of a couple who make a profession of hiding wanted criminals. At the hideout, she meets Simon, a second-generation mobster. As the police close in, Françoise and Simon go on the run together, pulling off occasional heists for operating money. Before long, they have also fallen in love.
Young aristocrat Arnaud de Maule hires female private detective Claude Alphand to investigate a strange cult, the Church of the Final Revival, that tried to recruit his girlfriend Chloé, who then disappeared, and it now stalks him.
A documentary interview with the French actress on the sets of films in production.
Summer Sunday at a small beach house at the coast of Rome. Many people and stories: women's basketball team, two sports-obsessed soldiers, two men with their girlfriends and the priest with a big secret, an elderly couple with their pregnant granddaughter, and engagemented couple wanting to have sex for the first time.
Just after World War I, Major Foster is incorporating new recruits into his French Foreign Legion platoon when he is sent to his former remote outpost located in the French Morocco to protect an archaeological excavation from El Krim, a Rifian leader who intends to unite all local tribes to fight the colonial government…
Imprisoned as an accessory to murder, Catherine gives birth to a son she conceived in prison. Eighteen years later, her sentence served, she is reunited with the boy, Simon, who has remained in an orphanage the entire time. She is accompanied by toothsome prison buddy Sarah, and gradually these people whose lives have been frozen in time "thaw" and get on with the business of living.
After his wife and daughter are raped and killed by a motorbike gang a man sets out to take revenge.
A young Frenchwoman fleeing her Italian fiancé in Caracas thrusts herself and those around her into madcap events.
Based on a true incident, this tells the story of a troubled young man who kills his sister's reactionary, violent and abusive husband and is eventually arrested for the murder. However, the dead husband happened to be a member of the Italian nobility, and the trial starts to turn into more of a prosecution of the defendant's socialist politics and the activities of his father, a well known liberal social reformer, than the actual crime itself.
A highly stylized surreal farce about the events leading up to Custer's Last Stand anachronistically reenacted in an urban renewal area in modern Paris.
An elderly millionaire manipulates an avant-garde writer and a happily married man.
Marco Mazzetti, a driving instructor, lives with his wife Irène and their young child. After a series of dizzy spells, he goes to the doctor and discovers that he is four-month pregnant. Marco then becomes internationally famous...
Liza meets the artist Giorgio and falls in love with him. She dreams of becoming the wife of Giorgio, but he is married. She dreams of being a close friend to him, but he has a favorite dog. Liza is ready for any sacrifice for the sake of her love. She kills Giorgio's dog and takes her place. Now she is a woman who always and everywhere follows her master.
Catherine and Marcello are secluded in their house, living under the candlelight. Unable to accept the injustice behind the loss of their nine-month-old baby, they face a slow but definite self-destruction.
Tristana is a young Spanish woman left to the care of Don Lope, a protective but impoverished aristocrat. Don sells his possessions to avoid manual labor and champions the causes of the dispossessed and downtrodden of society. He takes advantage of the vulnerable Tristana, who leaves him when she falls in love with Horacio. Unable to commit to him, she returns to Don Lope when she falls ill. He asks for her hand in marriage, and she accepts after losing her leg to cancer. She chooses to remain in a passionless union rather than be subject to the harsh realities of a society that refuses to change to the needs of women. Taken from the novel by celebrated author Benito Perez Galdos.
A fairy godmother helps a princess disguise herself so she won't have to marry her father.
Newly-promoted if none too happily married Howard Brubaker leaves a rowdy Company party early with the stunning Catherine, whom it turns out is herself unhappily married - to the boss. They spend an innocent night in New York becoming more and more attracted to each other, so that when Catherine announces she intends to leave her husband and return to Paris Howard asks to go along too. In the cold light of morning problems and pressures from spouses crowd in
Adapted from a story by William Irish, it's a noirish tale of a man who orders a mail-order bride but receives instead a con woman.
Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria clashes with his father, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, over implementing progressive policies for their country. Rudolf soon feels he is a man born at the wrong time in a country that doesn't realize the need for social reform. The Prince of Wales, later to become Britain's King Edward VII, provides comic relief. Rudolf finds refuge from a loveless marriage with Princess Stéphanie by taking a mistress, Baroness Maria Vetsera. Their untimely demise at Mayerling, the imperial family's hunting lodge, is cloaked in mystery.
Set in 18th century France, a naive 17-year-old orphan named Benjamin is taken in by his wealthy aunt, the Countess de Valandry. There, he is seduced by a variety of women, including a few flirtatious maidservants and neighboring countesses who all want to be Benjamin's "first".
Beautiful young housewife Séverine Serizy cannot reconcile her masochistic fantasies with her everyday life alongside dutiful husband Pierre. When her lovestruck friend Henri mentions a secretive high-class brothel run by Madame Anais, Séverine begins to work there during the day under the name Belle de Jour. But when one of her clients grows possessive, she must try to go back to her normal life.
Delphine and Solange are two sisters living in Rochefort. Delphine is a dancing teacher and Solange composes and teaches the piano. Maxence is a poet and a painter. He is doing his military service. Simon owns a music shop, he left Paris once month ago to come back where he fell in love 10 years ago. They are looking for love, looking for each other, without being aware that their ideal partner is very close...
After a road accident, a writer, Edgar, and his wife, Mylène, take up residence on an island off the coast of France to recuperate. Edgar soon recovers from his injuries and begins writing his next novel, seeking inspiration from the local people. His wife, however, has lost her voice and can only communicate through written notes. The islanders grow suspicious of the reclusive couple, their unease soon turning to aggression. Edgar is equally anxious about his neighbors, particularly a solitary widower, Ducasse, who has taken charge of a large consignment of crates. What secret project is Ducasse engaged in – and can it explain the strange behavior of the islanders?
In the countryside near Normandy's beaches lives Marie, unhappy. It's 1945, she's married to Jérôme, a somewhat fussy milquetoast, diffident to the war around him and unwilling to move his wife to Paris, where she longs to live, shop, and party. A German outfit is bivouacked at Jérôme and Marie's crumbling château because its commanding officer is pursuing Marie. She's also eyed by a French spy working with the Allies as they plan D-Day. He woos her (posing to the Germans as her brother) and, in his passion, forgets his mission. Heroics come from an unexpected direction, and Marie makes her choice.
An episode of the Belgian television series about the making of Jacques Demy's 1967 film "The Young Girls of Rochefort".
Beautiful young manicurist Carole suffers from androphobia (the pathological fear of interaction with men). When her sister and roommate, Helen, leaves their London flat to go on an Italian holiday with her married boyfriend, Carole withdraws into her apartment. She begins to experience frightful hallucinations, her fear gradually mutating into madness.
An episodic film, telling four erotic tales: Angela isn't sexually satisfied by her husband, so she simulates sleep-walking to visit her neighbor across the street every night; when his bathtub runs over, shy Peter gets to meet his sensuous neighbor Lolita; at a high-school reunion his former students pull a prank on Prof. Hellberg and make him believe he cheated on his wife while being drunk; Sybill has a good time during a break at the opera with the famous conductor Cramer.
A dedicated layabout (Jean-Pierre Cassel) bounces from relationship to relationship, moving on only when the prospect of employment presents itself.
Florence, early 1960s. Bruno aspires to be hired at a prestigious factory, but his Communist ideals — instilled by Millo, a father figure and family friend in love with Bruno's widowed mother Ivana — are an obstacle. His relationship with Lori, a beautiful and tormented young woman who has just returned from Milan, reshapes his convictions. Freely adapted from a minor novel by Vasco Pratolini.
This simple romantic tragedy begins in 1957. Guy Foucher, a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Geneviève Emery, an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, he and Geneviève make love. She becomes pregnant and must choose between waiting for Guy's return or accepting an offer of marriage from a wealthy diamond merchant.
Five swindle stories, taking place in five international cities: Tokyo, Japan ("Fumiko's Five Benefactors" by Hiromichi Horikawa); Amsterdam, The Netherlands ("A River of Diamonds" by Roman Polanski); Naples, Italy ("The Road Map" by Ugo Gregoretti); Paris, France ("The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower" by Claude Chabrol); and Marrakesh, Morocco ("The Confidence Man" by Jean-Luc Godard). Godard's segment was not included in the original French cinema release, and Polanski's segment was not included on the 2016 home disc release.
In 1964, on the request of UniFrance, writer and director Philippe Labro filmed four young actresses – Mireille Darc, Marie Dubois, Catherine Deneuve, and Françoise Dorléac – in order to promote these young talents around the world. He took a free approach to the project, trying to capture the personality of each one, while also providing a vision of Paris as the quintessential backdrop of French cinema. By way of a tribute to Françoise Dorléac, for whom 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of her death, MyFrenchFilmFestival today unveils a previously unseen segment of “4XD” about her.
A television documentary filmed on the set of Roman Polanski's 1964 film "Repulsion" with rare footage of Polanski and actress Catherine Deneuve at work.
Françoise and her husband Jean-Pierre invite some friend couples to spend a weekend in their large villa on the Portuguese coast. What follows is a romantic intrigue, with each character discovering a little more about himself.
1944 : Occupied France. Juliette (Vice) is Wehrmacht General Bamberg's mistress and enjoys a privileged life. Her younger sister Justine (Virtue) is about to marry Jean who is in the Resistance and come to Juliette for help. Both sisters end up at "la Commanderie", where Juliette becomes SS Colonel Schonberg's mistress and Justine is detained with other pretty girls who must satisfy the sexual needs of high-ranking nazi officials. Inspired by "Justine ou les infortunes de la vertu" by the marquis de Sade
On a sun-kissed beach, six people linger lazily, each confident of fulfilling his or her desires before the day is out. A wealthy heiress, Emmanuelle, has designs on a handsome adolescent, Ivan, but his interests lie elsewhere. Having gratified Emmanuelle’s womanly needs, Ivan immediately sets out to make his next conquest, the mistress of a well-known writer...
Between a whimsical wife, two insolent girls, a son who is engaged in strange chemical experiments and a mother-in-law who is being courted by a rich English lord, André Costais, an intractable industrialist, is struggling to impose his authority on his family.
Four little girls flee the cold concrete world of the housing project they live in, take refuge every evening in a house on an island in the middle of the Marne River. It is secret hideaway that no one should trespass. Unfortunately a big girl reveals everything to the schoolmistress and scandal breaks out. But it is Sophie, the youngest of the group, who gets suspected by her..."friends".
A beautiful and sophisticated teenager is placed in a regimented French girls' boarding school after her father apparently commits suicide over a business scandal. She immediately gains admirers -- a lustful middle-aged artist, a handsome young composer, a fellow female student -- as well as a jealous rival. With the help of her schoolmates, she attempts to elope with the composer, but the adults catch on to the plot, and she is locked into her room at night.
A chamber comedy-drama revolving around 3 women from different generations who meet up again in tragic circumstances and must live together for a whole year.
A look behind the scenes of Jacques Demy's Donkey Skin (1971).
A son diagnosed with cancer, a mother suffering from helplessness and a doctor: One year and four seasons for these three characters to deal with the disease, to tame it, and to understand what it means to die while alive.
