Zinedine Soualem
95-96, year of high school. Only 17 years old, Zahia Ziouni becomes aware that her dream of becoming a conductor and her ambition to make symphonic music accessible to all and in all territories, will go through the creation of an orchestra unique in its diversitý and composition. Helped by her twin sister Fettouma, a cellist, and while she was about to conduct her very first concert, she created the Divertimento orchestra. The latter still exists and, at 44 years old, Zahia is now a conductor recognized worldwide.
Realizing they both have a toxic relationship to the Internet, roommates Léa and Manon decide to do the unthinkable: abandon all devices for 30 days.
Everything seems to be smiling again at Yazid, an actor with a sulphurous past. He is trying to regain custody of his son and find a stable family life. But despite his efforts, he is overtaken by his old demons...
When the bond is broken between two sisters, a little girl transforms into someone new in the name of belonging and resistance.
Rémy and Mélanie are thirty years old and live in the same district in Paris. She multiplies missed appointments on social networks while he struggles to meet. Both victims of this loneliness of the big cities, at the time hyper connected where one thinks however that to meet should be simpler ... Two individuals, two courses. Without knowing it, they take two roads that will lead them in the same direction ... that of a love story?
Max and Minou are having a relationship crisis: she's crying, he's getting annoyed. Their car has been vandalised but this is not why she's crying. While looking for a car repairer on a small industrial estate, they come across some people who are even more troubled than they are. The world seems about to erupt.
Before being judges, attorneys, or jury members, they are first of all men and women at a crossroads in their lives, with their dreams and their secrets, their hopes and their limitations, all beneath the same sun, each with their own dark side. In a lovely provincial town, during a jazz festival, life will juggle with their destinies.
Mélanie, 16 years old, lives with her mother. She likes going to school, her friends, playing the cello, and she wants to change the world. But when she meets a boy on the Internet and falls in love with him, her world changes as she is gradually recruited by Daesh. Sonia is 17 years old, and she almost did something irrevocable to “guarantee” her family a place in paradise. These teenage girls might be called Anaïs, Manon or Leila, and one day they all might go some way down the recruitment process. But can they ever come back from it?
Charming thirty-year-old Hanna Belkacem has inherited the gene from her parents: she is unable to say no. And as she is the Director of Human resources of a big firm such infirmity is not without its problems, particularly when she has to fire someone. The only solution she has found to be forgiven is to... get laid with the men she lays off! One day, not wanting to upset someone as she is wont to, she finds herself in a very embarrassing situation: she is mistaken for a former school-friend of a hospital doctor mourning his mother. She of course goes to bed with him. As a result, Dr. Paul Martin falls in love with her while mistaking her once again... for a prostitute this time!
Every year Le Chef (English: The Chef), owner of the restaurant Le Paris, and a figure in French cuisine incorporates a young offender on probation into his team. Romain, just released from prison, arrives in this new world where gastronomy and excellence mix. After a difficult integration, he shows a real talent for cooking and climbs the ranks.
In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, a middle-aged Port-au-Prince couple come face to face with the stark contradictions of Haitian society when they are forced to rent out their villa to a foreign aid worker and his enterprising local girlfriend.
Fabian Groys, a renowned journalist for a political news magazine, enjoys great freedom, since the stories he uncovers make for good sales. When he loses a hot story about the German army, the editor saddles him with a young female intern. Fabian hates teamwork and sticks the intern with what seems a classic tabloid story about the suicide of a man who had himself torn to shreds by a lion at the zoo. But thanks to the intern’s dogged determination, signs emerge that the story Fabian was working on and the gory zoo story are actually interlinked. Is it pure coincidence? And if it isn’t, how can Fabian fight a nebulous enemy?
Christian is a divorced father who can only see his young daughter Vanessa every other weekend. When he meets the single mother Christine and decides to participate in a summer TV show, his whole life is turned upside down.
A woman suffers from an unusual illness caused by a flower growing in her lungs.
Xavier is a 40-year-old father of two who still finds life very complicated. When the mother of his children moves to New York, he can't bear them growing up far away from him and so he decides to move there as well.
Max is 6 years old. She lives with her dad Toni, a small time crook with a golden heart. For Xmas, Max offers him Rose, a call-girl found on the street whom she’s very fond of. Despite the complicated situation, Toni’s gonna have a hard time refusing her daughter’s «gift» and must coexist with Rose.
French territory is threatened by a terrorist organization just before the presidential election. If the government doesn't answer its demands, programmed bombs will explode gradually on the national railway network. Despite the operation deployed by the anti-terrorist unit, the Home Office has no other choice but to call Franck Barrot, police superintendent well-known for his controversial methods, to neutralize the armed group. His investigation will lead him to the very top level of the terrorist organization: the government itself.
It all began when camcorders replaced cameras. Making TV programs then became within everyone's reach. Jean-Lou, Yasmina, Victor, Clara, Adonis, and the others didn't only want to create their own television channel, they above all wanted to make a revolution. Thus Télé Gaucho was born, as anarchic and provocative as the main channels were conformist and reactionary. Five years of mayhem, brutal pirate TV demonstrations, drunken parties, and thwarted love.. And that was my idyllic interlude.
A robber escapes from prison with a single objective in mind: to track down his former cellmate, a serial killer who intends to pin his crimes on him. A cop is sent after the robber who, despite his best efforts, soon becomes Public Enemy Number One. As the protagonists are driven to their limits, it becomes increasingly unclear who is the hunter and who is the prey.
France, a factory worker, lives with her three daughters in Dunkirk. The factory where she worked has been closed, leaving France and all of her workmates without a job. She decides to go to Paris to look for work. There she finds a cleaning job at the home of a rich man, Steve, whose world is radically different from her own. As their paths keep crossing, she discovers that her employer played a part in closing the factory in Dunkirk...
During the elimination of the Belgian/French border in the 90s, a Belgian customs officer is forced to team up with one of his French counterparts.
A theater projectionist's daughter is involved in the Resistance in WWII, but she doesn’t share his political involvement & only believes in passion. She follows the men she loves unconditionally, suffering betrayal and hardship.
Bahia Benmahmoud, a free-spirited young woman, has a particular way of seeing political engagement, as she doesn't hesitate to sleep with those who don't agree with her to convert them to her cause - which is a lot of people, as all right-leaning people are concerned. Generally, it works pretty well. Until the day she meets Arthur Martin, a discreet forty-something who doesn't like taking risks. She imagines that with a name like that, he's got to be slightly fascist. But names are deceitful and appearances deceiving.
Mistaken for a dangerous Islamist, Saadi - a regular guy who happens to be an illegal Arab immigrant - sets out on the most dangerous day of his life. A satirical and thrilling comedy where a wrongly accused suspect gets mixed up in a worldwide terrorist plot.
Valentine et Alex sont mariés, avocats tous les deux, spécialistes des affaires familiales. Dans l'exercice de leur profession, ils défendent le divorce du XXIème siècle : à l'amiable, dans la sérénité et le respect de l'autre, de préférence en garde alternée et en la famille recomposée, loin des vases casés et des atroces scènes de ménage de la génération précédente. Jusqu'au jour où, par faute d'un banal adultère, leur couple vole en éclats. Et la réalité du divorce les rattrape : fini les beaux discours, place à la guerre...
Although living a comfortable life in Salon-de-Provence, a charming town in the South of France, Julie has been feeling depressed for a while. To please her, Philippe Abrams, a post office administrator, her husband, tries to obtain a transfer to a seaside town, on the French Riviera, at any cost. The trouble is that he is caught red-handed while trying to scam an inspector. Philippe is immediately banished to the distant unheard of town of Bergues, in the Far North of France...
Cedric alias "The Quick" was abandoned at birth by his mother and grew up somehow in the homes of the DDASS. One day his teacher Bernard tells him he has a brother, Matthew, alias "Little M", of whom he knows nothing. Unlike Cedric, Mathieu was raised by a wealthy family in an upscale suburb. The meeting between the two brothers promises to be chaotic. Yet, however big their differences, Cedric and Mathieu have one thing in common: they have not known their mother. The two brothers therefore decide to find her. This is the beginning of a long and perilous journey of initiation in which they will get to know each other ...
Between his tax problems and his legal battle with his wife for the custody of his daughter, these are hard times for the action movie star who finds that even Steven Seagal has pinched a role from him! Jean-Claude Van Damme returns to the country of his birth to seek the peace and tranquility he can no longer enjoy in the United States.
The successful novelist Judith Ralitzer is interrogated in the police station about the disappearance of her ghost-writer. A serial-killer escapes from a prison in Paris. A missing school teacher leaves his wife and children. In the road, the annoying and stressed hairdresser Hughette is left in a gas station by her fiancé Paul while driving to the poor farm of her family in the country. A mysterious man offers a ride to her and she invites him to assume the identity of Paul during 24 hours to not disappoint her mother. Who might be the unknown man and what is real and what is fiction?
The true story of Elle France editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, in 1995 at the age of 43, suffered a stroke that paralyzed his entire body, except his left eye. Using that eye to blink out his memoir, Bauby eloquently described the aspects of his interior world, from the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body to his imagined stories from lands he'd only visited in his mind.
Jacob Berger’s film shows a day in the life of a family. People meet and leave, and wonder, will they find themselves again? At daybreak, Serge believes he has committed a crime. Pietra realises that she has been betrayed around midday. At one o’clock 8-year-old Vlad feels lovesick for the first time. The day is spent observing, looking, avoiding and meeting each other. One day, three different perspectives: the same evening twilight, the same loneliness. And there is always the stranger who crosses their path. How will Serge, Pietra and Vlad find each other?
A collective film of 33 shorts directed by different directors about their feeling about cinema.
Mary and Joseph make the hard journey to Bethlehem for a blessed event in this retelling of the Nativity story. This meticulously researched and visually lush adaptation of the biblical tale follows the pair on their arduous path to their arrival in a small village, where they find shelter in a quiet manger and Jesus is born.
"The choice of each period is intimate, as each period awakens a particular emotion in me. This emotion reflects what is around me, not everyone is able to recognise it -- that is the risk I take. I think that this is good enough reason to make a film that will make visible small yet revealing things in differeent ways. I believe in tropisms and that is what interests me in this film." -- Marie Vermillard [taken from London Film Festival 2006 catalogue]
On a mission to loosen up, a miser's sets about buying a house in the country for his family.
Five years after their summer together in Barcelona, Xavier, William, Wendy, Martine and Isabelle reunite.
A small crook manages to crash at a musician's apartment and turns his life upside down.
Charles Boulin decides to sell his small apartment on Avenue Foch to purchase a little hotel in the western suburbs of Paris. But the hotel happens to be a decaying house in Argenteuil. He wanted to surprise his wife and daughter, but it soon turns into a nightmare when they learn they have move into this shack, during the work, along with unscrupulous workers ...
"Ni Pour, Ni Contre" tracks the fall of a young TV camerawoman, Caty, after she becomes involved with a group of petty criminals and their enigmatic leader, Jean. The gang lives hand-to-mouth until the day Jean plans a daring bank robbery. Although other gang members feel out of their league, Jean persuades them to take part and Caty finds herself in a hellish world of betrayal, violence and murder.
The island of Kiam was once a paradise place with a kind Maharaja as a ruler. But one day the villainous Malaw killed the island’s ruler and deprived the Crown Prince Shiva of the throne. The insidious Malaw had the prince locked up in a dungeon in the palace’s underground labyrinth, and he announced to the Kiam residents that he would kill Shiva if they only tried to rebel. Then the Old Sage Swami, aided by programmer Agni, came into contact with the Light of Crystal. That’s what he called a girl named Parva, who embodied radiant innocence and was born of the same astral combination as Prince Shiva. Only she and her love could save the prince and bring peace back to the island of Kiam.
Between Alice, a hospital nurse and Aldo, a shampoo sales representative, things have turned sour of late. Alice blames her husband for lacking ambition and contemplates divorce.One day Aldo wins the ten million euro lotto prize. But, unwilling to share the bonanza, he keeps mum about it, all the more as he finds out Alice has an affair with Gérard, Aldo's former friend and ... new boss. However, Aldo, leading a double life, starts spending his money ...
The Egyptian Queen Cleopatra bets against the Roman Emperor, Julius Caesar, that her people are still great, even if the times of the Pharaohs has long passed. She vows (against all logic) to build a new palace for Caesar within three months. Since all her architects are either busy otherwise or too conservative in style, this ambivalent honor falls to Edifis. He is to build the palace and be covered in gold or, if not, his fate is to be eaten by crocodiles. Edifis calls upon an old friend to help him out: The fabulous Druid Getafix from Gaul, who brews a fantastic potion that gives supernatural strength. In order to help and protect the old Druid, Asterix and Obelix accompany him on his journey to Egypt. When Julius Caesar gets wind of the project succeeding, he has the building site attacked by his troops in order to win the bet and not lose face. But just like the local pirates, he hasn't counted on Asterix and Obelix.
A strait-laced French student moves into an apartment in Barcelona with a cast of six other characters from all over Europe. Together, they speak the international language of love and friendship.
Old buddies Eric, Jean and Karim have never really grown up. Spending their listless days and nights in the same Lyon suburb where they were raised, the men are always looking for distractions. So when Jean steals a television camera one afternoon, the trio decide to head into the city in the hopes of pawning it. But their funny idea of an adventure turns out to be a ticket into trouble.
Claire is a young woman who leads a somewhat formatted life. Pierre is an improviser, but not an actor. Brief encounter, brief romance, doomed or not, who can say? When things like that happen, you act on the spur of the moment.
The story of an immigrant woman struggling against old world traditions. Zouina leaves her homeland with her three children to join her husband in France, where he's been living for the past ten years. In a land and culture foreign to her, Zouina struggles against her mother-in-law's tyrannical hand and her husband's distrustful bitterness in an attempt to adjust to her life in exile.
A man and a woman whose first names will never be known and who should never meet. He is an immigrant, worker of the vine, she is a fleeing bourgeois who thinks she has committed an irreparable mistake.
Professor Choron recounts with his memories as a child of a barrier guard, the 2nd World War with its horrors and the trains he saw during those years leaving for Germany or coming from there, full of French or German soldiers, in conquest or in rout according to the period
Arthur is invited to a New Year's Eve party to celebrate the year 2000. His girlfriend Lucie would like a baby from him but he refuses. Through the ceiling of the toilets, he discovers a passage leading to this futurist Paris. There, he meets an old man Ako who affirms he is his son and that he wants to exist. Otherwise he will vanish into the air. Arthur is still hesitant because his life is an unfulfilled one: a has a little lucrative job, is uncertain about his future and things are getting out of hand when Ako discovers the passage and interferes in the party.
Maxime and Gerard are a couple of white-collar criminals condemned to 5 years in prison. Sandrine Athan, an honest and principled young police officer, is assigned the banal task of escorting them to the nearest prison in Melun. Things get complicated when killers try to knock them off. Meanwhile, they must contend with strikes which have paralyzed the country and make travelling a nightmare. Added to this mess are the prisoners' many botch escape attempts. All these complications turn a simple transfer into a hellish adventure.
Claire Doste is about to reach the age of 35 and has everything one dreams of, such as having four boyfriends and a creative job in a publishing house specialising in crime novels. One day, she invites all of her boyfriends to her birthday dinner so that she can pick out her would-be fiancé. But an accident happens when Claire is getting the dinner ready.
Twenty-four hours in the life of a young musician, Noël Akchoté, in his dealings with improvisation, technique, money, concerts, studios, guitars, history, independents, majors. Between fiction and documentary, between laughter and seriousness, a "jazz" portrait.
A quartet of Parisians embark upon a guided hike in Corsica and end up working through the sometimes comical chaos of their individual lives while becoming lost and contending with such obstacles as bad weather and aching bodies. Both of the female hikers are seeking love, though one of them is involved with their married guide and tries to push him into getting a divorce. The other, a former actress, simply wants the perfect mate. Neither of the two male hikers, one who is involved with an Australian and the other is in love with making money, qualify for her affections.
To punish three troublemakers, Albert Castraing, their French teacher, gives them an essay to do, in which they must imagine what their lives would be if they were suddenly transformed into adults. The next morning, the three twelve-year-old boys realize to their amazement that...they HAVE BEEN transformed into adults! As for they parents they have become...KIDS! It is the beginning of a series of mishaps for Joseph, a Jew, Igor, a catholic and Nourdine, an Arab...
Jean-Pierre Costa is a football manager upon whom fate appears not to be smiling. First, a friend, Annabelle, dumps a pet Labrador named Didier on him whilst she goes off to make a report in Los Angeles. Next, one of his star players is injured, leaving him one player short for a crucial match. As if things could not get any worse, Costa wakes up one morning to find that that Didier has been transformed into a man...
24 hours in a man's life who became famous. He returns in his childhood's city after 30 years of absence
Sandrine dreams of becoming a singer in Paris but for the time being she is only a salesgirl at Tati's and lives in a second rate hotel under the careful eye of Ahmed, the night watchman. One day, she meets Gérald, her brother's former boyfriend, who persuades her to move into his apartment. He soon takes control over Sandrine's life, organizing erotic rendezvous for her, taking her to her clients and waiting for her until she is through with her task.
An upper middle-class French family celebrates a birthday in a restaurant. In one evening and during one meal, family history, tensions, collective and separate grudges, delights, and memories both clash and coalesce.
After fatally shooting a stalker, Parisian bar-maid Lea must live the life of the title reptile. At the time of the killing she was living with Francis, a much older American ex-con. After committing the murder, the fleeing and frightened Lea is saved by Paris paper boys Jean and Luc. Later she tells her sad story to hard-drinking Moskowitz, a middle-aged cop who secretly desires her. His unrequited love leads to tragedy. Meanwhile, Lea continues living with Francis, but also shacks up with Luc while trying to avoid the jealous cop.
When Chloe, a young Parisian, decides to take a long-overdue vacation, she has to find someone to look after Gris-Gris, her beloved cat. Everyone, including her gay male roommate, refuses to help her, but she finally makes an arrangement with the elderly Madame Renée, who often watches over other peoples' cats and dogs. However, when Chloe comes back, Madame Renée tells her that unfortunately the cat has been lost, and the unlucky owner goes on a search for her dear animal friend. While looking for the cat, she meets many colorful characters who populate the neighborhood.
An avid moviegoer sees several films depicting grisly murderers and decides to commit a crime himself, only to discover that there's quite a difference between fantasy and reality.
Aimlessly whiling away their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia, Vinz, Hubert, and Said - a Jew, African, and an Arab - give human faces to France's immigrant populations, their bristling resentment at their social marginalization slowly simmering until it reaches a climactic boiling point.
Black comedy about two best friends, one a budding playwright and the other a motorbike freak, who spend their time annoying their girlfriends and getting into various scrapes. Things turn nasty, however, when the pair are caught burgling the offices of a karate magazine, the consequences of which sends the playwright into a spiraling bout of depression.
Martine is 25. Since breaking up with François, she has the feeling that the world is caving in on her. Between small jobs and one-night stands, she can't seem to get a fix on herself. In desperation, after a last quarrel with François, she unintentionally causes an accident that leads her to the emergency ward of a psychiatric hospital. During her brief stay, she unexpectedly sparks into life. She takes an interest in two young patients, Pierre and Anne, convinced that she is doing the right thing in supervising their love life...
Vincent is 13 years old and has a boundless admiration for his father. His father is unemployed and is mainly involved in football, pretending to become a professional trainer soon, and does not take care of his family. Vincent's mother manages everything, until one day, at the end of her tether, she attempts suicide.
