Nelly Kaplan
A small village lies peacefully nestled in the hills beneath the Provence sun... until the arrival of an odd group of vacationers. Who are these gorgeous young women from the big city strolling on the village square under the watchful eye of a chaperone as beautiful as she is authoritarian? Scandal arises when it’s learned these dreamy creatures are none other than the employees of a Marseille brothel come to enjoy the good clean air of the country. All hell breaks loose as the villagers take a stand for or against the presence of these "ladies of pleasure". The mayor is called on to relay women of the moral rules of the region to the women. But the fact remains, they can’t be forced to leave: while they have no intention of plying their trade, no law exists to bring their country retreat to a premature end. Different mentalities are revealed, passions unbridled, love kindled... and doesn’t love always solve everything in the end?
Guillaume de Burlador is a private tutor who hits a low point sufficiently severe for him to contemplate a somewhat theatrical suicide. Instead he is taken off by flying boat to a mad French colonial possession bedecked by mad servants and crazy decor. Three educated and rather gorgeous women live there, and they hire him to tutor a young teenager, but more with plans to seduce him in mind.
Two women, one a clairvoyant and the other a masseuse, discover they are both married to the same man and decide to punish him for his wayward behavior.
Dora Stern, an American photographer living in Paris, wakes up from the same nightmare over and over again. In a small antique store she finds a collage with fearful eyes that haunt her. At home she removes the layers of the collage until she can see the original photo showing a young woman in fear who looks exactly like Dora Stern. But who is this woman?
This documentary focuses on the making of the 235-minute, silent epic Napoleon, the masterpiece of French director/writer/actor Abel Gance. Napoleon showcased Gance's talents with the camera, his use of multiple-images (like a split screen), and his handling of crowded action scenes -- all brought forward in this documentary by his later assistant, Nelly Kaplan. While Gance was shooting Napoleon in 1925-26, he and his crew were also being filmed for a documentary titled Autour de Napoleon. The only extant reels from that documentary are included in this film, as well as views of Gance's unique "triptychs" -- three different scenes lined up side-by-side across a super-wide screen to convey the effect of a panorama, or of three separate interludes. Nelly Kaplan put together this documentary using old footage, such as Gance filming the famous snowball fight at the Brienne military school and still photographs and excerpts from Gance's production diaries.
In Genève, bookseller and publisher Axel Thorpe catches willful, rich 16-year old Sibylle Ashby shoplifting. She brags about her writing, so he challenges her to produce a book. She writes an erotic novel that Thorpe publishes anonymously, and it becomes a best seller. She also tries to capture the love of this 40-year old publisher. When he drops her for her older sister, should she seek revenge or recapture? In subplots, she gets along badly with her sister and her father, and she encourages her mother's affair with dad's sister. Axel has problems too besides the determined Sibylle: he must come to terms with the drowning death of his mother years ago.
Richard is a private detective. He makes a good money from marital infidelity: the deceived husband and wife generously paid him for proof of their infidelity "halves"...
In this whimsical French comedy, Cookie (Sheila White) is a tough, sweet little rich girl, and is rather smart, too. She's smart enough and charming enough to outwit her kidnappers by setting one against the other until they have all killed each other or died trying to prove their worth to her.
Marie is a young woman who lives in sheer poverty in the fictional village and commune of Tellier (an allusion to La Maison Tellier) with her mother, a woman of obscure origins suspected to be a Romanichel sorcerer, and her pet buck. Marie and her mother are despised by the locals although Marie is also a sexual object for them, including her lesbian boss Irène. One day, when her mother dies after a hit-and-run accident and the locals do not even care to bury her, Marie decides that things have to change and starts to charge people who have sex with her. Eventually, she plans to take revenge on those people who take advantage of her.
On the 1967 huge Picasso exhibition in Paris, celebrating the 85 anniversary of the painter.
A story of "La Pasta", a renowned prima donna, and her extraordinary rival.
The life and work of Abel Gance as told by himself. Includes extracts from many of his films and considers his contribution to the cinema.
A brilliant analysis of 19th century French Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau, known for his fantastical and mythological subjects, and who remains to these days an influential figure in the birth of modern art.
The first half of this film covers Napoleon's coronation as Emperor and political manoeuvrings while the second half covers the actual battle.
