Clotilde de Bayser
Olivier, Rémi and Pascale are three friends who have known each other since childhood. As they approach middle age, they each experience something of a crisis in their lives. Olivier, a doctor before becoming wheelchair bound, faces a bleak future after the break up of two relationships. The fact that Rémi and his wife Estelle are unable to have children puts an increasing strain on their marriage. And Pascale, a filmmaker, is on the point of leaving her husband to pursue an affair with an opportunistic career politician.
The poet Jean Sénac is also a radio presenter. A Pied-noir, he opted to stay in Algeria after the country achieved independence in 1962. Ten years later he is monitored by the police of the present regime. His poems have a large public following and his radio show is a great success, especially with the young. The poet allies himself with two students, aspiring playwrights Hamid and Belkacem, to fight for the freedom and culture of Algerian youth.
Benoit Blanc loves living, he loves women, he loves daring. He is a famous businessman who suffers from stomach-ache. Fabiolini, a would-be actor, is a policeman and he too suffers from the same sickness. The two man face suffering in opposite ways: Benoit Blanc is optimistic while Fabiolini, always unsure of himself, is persuaded he is seriously ill. The two men meet by chance while doing a gastroscopy and become friends. After having known their real different conditions, they will change and will understand better their lives. Around them, other people, women and men, will see their lives changed, by chance, by love or solely by the life stream.
Antoine Rivière, a highly-reputed psychoanalyst, is visited by a new patient, Edouard Berg. When Berg claims to have killed his own wife, the doctor suspects he is a compulsive liar. How could he know that he has been caught in a trap and it's already too late for escape?
A death in the family. Patrick dies and his three sisters gather at their parents' home in Normandy. Anne, the oldest, is steady, married with two children, showing little emotion. Isabelle, who's cut herself off from her family for eight years, returns from Paris. Claude, Patrick's twin and still a student, grieves for her other half. Along with their parents, each must face family grievances first before they can grieve together for Patrick. Then comes the revelation of how he died, and new feelings come to the fore. Can a death help a family to heal, coax an aging mother back to sanity, bring a couple into each other's arms, and enable two sisters to grow?
It’s the story of a love quadrangle, a child, a theater troupe, and a long winter. Nathalie is pregnant, but the baby’s father, Stefane, leaves her for Sabine, a set designer for the theater. Sabine has just left Bruno, an actor in the same troupe. Nathalie tries to kill herself and is saved by her friend Leni, as Stefane then follows Sabine on her theatrical tour...
This drama attempts to be a film within a film. In the outer story, Andre Dussolier stars as a film director working with drama students at the Paris Conservatory, making a film (the inner story) about a woman's obsession with a foreign desert. Wallowing in maudlin sentimentality, this feature fails to live up to the promise of its probable inspiration, Fame (1980), and was not well-received at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival. However, as a medium for instructing director Francis Girod's actual students at the Paris Conservatory about the art and perils of filmmaking, it was undoubtedly a good deal more successful.
In a small town in post-World-War-II France, an unhappy sixteen-year-old (Janine Castang) tries to escape her dreary situation by any means at her disposal. Three successive friends (Michel Davenne, a married lover; Raoul, a fellow thief; Mauricette Dargelos, a photographer and fellow prisoner) help her learn from her mistakes.
Constance is a young lady who likes to read – and who likes to dream while reading - to imagine, to create images. This is what she does for «La Lectrice», a novel which tells the adventures of Marie, a young lady who likes reading so much that she decides to make a profession of it. Selected texts, Provence in wintertime, different neighbourhoods. Deviations from fiction, secret itinaries. An imaginary space penetrates the space of the town, whose streets Marie stries along, while Constance devours novel. The unknown lies behind each word.
