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An intimate and political history of the French working class from the early 1950s to the present day.

It is April 1933 and the Nazis have been in power in Germany for just two months. All liberties have been suppressed. Fritz Lang, who has just directed “The Testament of Dr. Mabuse”, is summoned to the private quarters of Joseph Goebbels. The objective of the meeting: to convince the most prominent man in German cinema to work for the Nazi regime.

While Louis XV is dying, the Dauphine of France, Marie-Antoinette, seduces a Swedish officer, Axel de Fersen, which pains her husband, the new King Louis XVI, who will know how to be generous when he learns of this deception.

We follow Ronsard to the Loire Valley, listening to him evoke his loves through odes and sonnets. Thus, Cassandre, Marie d'Angevine, Hélène de Surgères come back to life for a few moments for us. This evocation does not forget the friendship between Ronsard and another great poet of the 16th century, also born on the banks of the Loire, Joachim du Bellay. It takes us to the castles of Blois and Taley, to the manor of La Denysière, to Couture, Ronsard's birthplace, and to the priory of Saint-Cosme-les-Tours, where the poet died.

In 1960, the announcement of social regression measures decided by the Belgian government triggered a wildcat strike by workers. Albert and Fred were at the forefront of a struggle that promised to be heated and risky. The great Walloon strike shook Belgium to its core. Violence, demonstrations, internationalists, red flags, Walloon flags. For five weeks, the country was paralyzed by a movement that often took on the air of an insurrection.

The story of the seven pearls of the English Crown, from Henry VIII to 1937 – three of them missing.

Henry VIII considers repudiating Catherine of Aragon. The ambitious Jane Seymour, lady-in-waiting to the queen, then saw the possibility of arriving at the throne.

A new look at the public and private life of one of the most important statesmen in the history of Europe: Winston Churchill (1874-1965), soldier, politician, writer, painter, leader of his country in the darkest hours, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, a myth, a giant of the 20th century.

With Its Myriad Of Mysteries Ancient Egypt Continues To Work Its Spell. The Necropolis Of Saqqara Roughly 30 Kilometers From Cairo Holds One Of Egypt's Most Fascinating Treasures The Pyramid Of Pharaoh Pepi Ii. Few Know Of It As It Is Closed To The Public Yet It Holds The Vastest Collection Of Texts Of All Currently Known Pyramids. For The First Time In 90 Years Teams From The International Archeological Mission In Saqqara Open And Decipher This Wondrous Tomb. How Did The Egyptians Build The Pyramids? Their Walls Are Covered In Hieroglyphs But What Story Do They Tell? How To Crack The Mystery Of Texts That Are Over Four Thousand Years Old? Using Technological Innovations Such As Photogrammetry Endoscopes Hyperspectral Imaging And Ultrahigh Resolution Photography This Documentary Alternates Live Scenes With Staged Interviews To Plunge Us Into Saqqara's History And Offer New Insights Into The Pharaohs' Tombs.

The representation of genitalia in the fine arts was censored for centuries: sexual organs were discreetly hidden among fig leaves, pearls or sheets; and it is still a taboo today. From Antiquity to the present day, the history of puritanism applied to art and the tricks used by artists to circumvent censorship.

Since its opening in 1882, the Paris Bourse du Travail (Labor Exchange) has remained a nerve center of the labor movement. Once a hotbed of revolutionary syndicalism, and now a meeting place for the main labor federations, history is etched into the walls of the Bourse. It is from the rooms bearing the names of illustrious figures—Eugène Varlin, Fernand Pelloutier, Jean Jaurès, Léon Jouhaux—that historians (Jean Bruhat, Bernard Georges, Jacques Julliard, Jean Maitron, Madeleine Reberioux, Denise Trintant) and the Bourse's general secretary, Jean Braire, have sought to bring to life a century of social history. The general secretaries of the five major labor federations (André Bergeron, Jean Bornard, Edmond Maire, Jacques Pommateau, Georges Seguy) discuss the origins of the Bourses du Travail, but also address the present and the future.

In 19th-century Montenegro, the free mountain territories are surrounded by Turkish forces, isolated from the West and steeped in conservatism, patriarchy, and superstition. Morlak, a poet and bishop inspired by the historical figure Petar II Petrović Njegoš, leads his tribe in resisting the invaders. Gravely ill, he is sent to southern Italy in search of a cure. The journey takes him to a house in Naples, a city that contrasts sharply with his homeland’s isolated hills. As Morlak contemplates his existence, his loyal servant Djuko struggles with profound nostalgia, driven by the fear of his master’s death in a foreign land.

After decades of inaccessibility due to unrest and wars, teams of archaeologists from around the globe return to the greatest sites in Mesopotamia in a bid to save what can still be saved.

On March 9, 1953, Joseph Stalin was buried in Moscow in front of a million people. His funeral is that of a demi-God. Ultimate paradox for one of the greatest criminals in History who brought misfortune to his people while arousing collective admiration.

The first fiction film about de Gaulle. At the origin of the adventure, there is a script commissioned in 1942 from William Faulkner. It lacked the end of the story, and the view of the French of today. The destinies of the great and the small intersect, without meeting. Epics live on dreams as much as on reality.

A wild, tragicomic adventure that satirizes history through dueling narratives by Jules Verne and his wife Honorine, each recounting young Charles Darwin’s journey to the Galápagos — a voyage teeming with pirates, pink iguanas, and a riotous mix of chaos, discovery, and revolt.

A mysterious Green Knight rides into a court celebration and challenges the young knights present to strike him with his own axe - on the condition that he, the Green Knight, may return exactly the same blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts and cuts off his head. But the Green Knight stands up, retrieves his head, and rides away, reminding Gawain of his promise.

Master filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) transforms a portrait of the world-renowned museum into a magisterial, centuries-spanning reflection on the relation between art, culture and power.

When, in 1733, Voltaire, the most brilliant mind of his day, collaborates with Rameau, its greatest composer, in undertaking an ambitious reform of operatic practice, the result is the biblical opera Samson. But the libretto is condemned and the score lost – possibly reworked here and there in later compositions. Claus Guth and Raphaël Pichon, haunted by this interesting project that had turned into one of the most intriguing failures in operatic history, have tried, not to recreate the letter, but to revive the spirit: to marry a strong, noble libretto with the most eloquent music.

In September 2021, France will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty. A decision so strong that it will symbolize, in itself, the first seven years of François Mitterrand. For Robert Badinter, it was the fight of a lifetime, rooted in a personal history marked by the rejection of injustice, which began after the arrest of his father by the Gestapo in 1943. A story told through archives and by his family and closest friends.

In 1271, the Seventh Crusade has failed. During their retreat, the troops transport the remains of King Louis IX, the Holy King, across the peninsula. A world has ended, and five young people with nothing in common set out to find the location of the Holy Shroud, stolen by traitors at the French court. Their journey will take them from the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines to Thebes, where the sacred relic is hidden.

Paris, when a young artist discovers a mysterious drowned woman, his obsession to immortalize her in a portrait threatens his sanity. Decades later, the photograph resurfaces, consuming a young journalist whose pursuit of the truth blurs the line between memory, myth, and madness.

With testimonials from Mathias Moncorgé, Costa-Gavras, Marc Lemonier, Michel Wyn, Yannick Yéhée, Ginette Vincendeau, Brigitte Hernandez, Patrice Gélinet, and Bernard Stora. The kid from the suburbs, unloved by his parents, little Jean Moncorgé, moved to Montmartre in 1914. A rowdy street urchin, he ended up working as an usher in a music hall. In 1927, he met Mistinguett at the Moulin Rouge. She was 52, he was 25, and they fell madly in love. Many others would follow. The most famous were Marlène Dietrich and Michèle Morgan. A man of the people who became a landowner in Normandy, an anarchist, and a horse breeder, Gabin had several lives. Before the war, he was the star who celebrated the rebellious working class. During the war, he left Hollywood, reverted to Moncorgé, and enlisted in the navy.

'Reformed Colonel' Raoul Duplan is found dead in Paris, a couple of decades after Algeria's struggle for independence was won from France. Assigned to investigate, Lieutenant Galois receives the diary of Lieutenent Guy Rossi, who served under Duplan in Algeria in 1956, and has been reported as MIA since 1957. The revelations in Rossi's diary far surpass Duplan's actions in Algeria, and give insight on how dirty Algeria's War for Independence really was.

The story unfolds in the winter of the year 1215. A mysterious stranger who has escaped from prison arrives in a tiny, remote village in the kingdom of France plagued by famine and leprosy, and ruled by an ageing lord, a former hero from the Crusades, Lord Ocam. Together with his horde of knights, Ocam abducts a young girl from the village in order to exert his droit du seigneur over her. A handful of villagers, backed up by The Stranger, attempt to release her, but they only have until nightfall…

This big-budget historical epic from acclaimed Egyptian director Youssef Chahine features a crazed turn by Patrice Chereau as Napoleon Bonaparte. The film, an Egyptian-French co-production, deals with Napoleon's occupation of Alexandria and its effect on a typical Egyptian family. Michel Piccoli leads the cast as a general in Napoleon's army who tentatively befriends a local poet and falls in love with two young Egyptian brothers, reflecting complex themes of colonial desire, affection, and personal connection.

Story of the Siberian monk Gregory Rasputin and the hold he exerted over the court of the last Russian czar, Nicholas.

In 1887, at a time when duels are in vogue in Paris, Clément Lacaze and Marie-Rose Astié meet. He's a charismatic master of arms; she's a feminist, far ahead of her time. Clément gets caught in a spiral of violence and decides to initiate Marie-Rose in the art of dueling. The two must work together to save face. How far will they go to defend their honor?

A journey through the artistic life of the British-American rock band The Pretenders, formed in 1978, and a portrait of its leader, the charismatic singer and songwriter Chrissie Hynde.

On October 17, 1961, 30,000 Algerians demonstrated peacefully in Paris to protest the discriminatory curfew imposed upon them and to demand Algerian independence. Under the authority of the then Prefect of Police, Maurice Papon, the demonstration was brutally repressed, resulting in the deaths of dozens of Algerians. Historians cite eleven thousand arrests, dozens of murders, demonstrators thrown into the Seine, hundreds of expulsions, and just as many complaints that went unanswered; all for a night that would become a blind spot in the national narrative. No investigation, no trial, and certainly no commemoration. The day after the demonstration, Jacques Panijel began filming *October in Paris* to alert the public to the massacre that had just taken place in the streets of Paris. The film was banned by the French authorities. It obtained a distribution license in 1973. It was first shown in theaters in October 2011.

The story of the adventures, in the twilight of the eighteenth century, of a singular couple formed by a little orphan with mysterious origins and his young Italian nurse of a similarly uncertain birth. They lead us in their wake, from Rome to Paris, from Lisbon to London, from Parma to Venice. Always followed in the shadows, for obscure reasons, by a suspicious-looking Calabrian and a troubling cardinal, they make us explore the dark intrigues of the Vatican, the pangs of a fatal passion, a gruesome duel, banter at the court of Versailles and the convulsions of the French Revolution.

Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria and a very young girl, marries King Louis-Auguste, Dauphine of France. This historical drama tells the tragic tale of a young woman who, in the beginning started out with task, that ended with great sadness and sorrow.

In the heart of Paris, an entire palace has disappeared. It was the very first residence of the kings of France. Long before Versailles, long before the Louvre, the Palais de la Cité stood on the most prestigious island in Paris, the historic cradle of France, facing Notre-Dame. So majestic in the Middle Ages, this palace has become a ghost of history. Over the centuries, this architectural masterpiece has almost completely disappeared. A trio of experts will resurrect it in 3D. Using science and unprecedented excavations, they will track down the pieces of the puzzle to reconstruct it at its peak in the 14th century, and bring back to life those who inhabited it. From the Romans to the Vikings, from Saint Louis to the cursed kings, all have left clues of this 'Versailles of the Middle Ages'.

What happened in France just after WWII, between 1945 and 1949? An interesting historic documentary looks at the fate of male and female (presumed) collaborators with the Nazis, the use of the POW in the reconstruction of the plundered and devastated country.

Laura lives in a Hotel in Britanny and meets there an old man. Laura looks like his wife Lise, who's killed by the Gestapo...

April 17, 1944. A high-profile trial for sedition opens in Washington. Dozens of individuals—including members of Congress—are accused of cooperating with German forces, participating in pro-Nazi movements, and plotting to overthrow the U.S. government. How did this happen in the world's greatest democracy? And why does no one remember this major episode in American history?

We are in the year 1871. A journalist for Versailles Television broadcasts a soothing and official view of events while a Commune television is set up to provide the perspectives of the Paris rebels. On a stage-like set, more than 200 actors interpret characters of the Commune, especially the Popincourt neighborhood in the XIth arrondissement. They voice their thoughts and feelings concerning the social and political reforms.

A pictureless film in 3D sound full of political, poetic and incendiary echoes around the death and words of Percy Bysshe Shelley, an infamous young poet driven out of his country after kidnapping his future young wife, Mary Shelley, and who was found dead in 1822, at the age of 29, on the shore of Viareggio in Italy. This sound movie uses text, music and sophisticated sound design projected via 27 speakers to conjure powerful images in the listener's mind.

Having found the fabulous treasure of which Abbé Faria had spoken to him, Dantès has only one idea left: revenge. He will succeed patiently, but will not however have the heart to break the poor Mercedes. Then he will leave for the East, accompanied by a lovely Levantine, Haydé, who served him to accomplish his revenge.

A documentary on Soviet filmmaker Aleksandr Medvedkin, examining his tumultuous career, the rediscovery of his masterpiece Happiness, and Russia's struggles over the course of the 20th Century.

Called in the middle of the night to attend a birth in a poor and large family, Emma Goldman, a feminist anarchist, strives to relieve the suffering of the woman in labor. Back at home, she finds herself confronted by her companion Ed, exhausted by her absences.

Mothers, nurses, soldiers and deportees - these women fought against persecution for freedom and survival amid the turbulence of World war II.

To tell the story of Joseph Kessel is to tell the story of the entire 20th century. He lived a thousand lives in one: reporter, novelist, exile, resistance fighter, screenwriter, adventurer, gambler, poet, alcoholic, cabaret lover, seducer, and inveterate globetrotter. Through archival footage and Kessel's colorful language, this film traces the journey of a man who turned reporting into an epic and reality into the stuff of novels.

From 1954 to 1962, during the Algerian War, French citizens provided concrete assistance to the FLN in France: sheltering refugees, forging documents, facilitating border crossings, and transporting funds. Whether committed to the ideals of the Republic or driven by Third Worldist revolutionaries, they sought to build a bridge of friendship between nations. They paid for their commitment with imprisonment and exile. Four veterans of the Jeanson network recall this period. Today, they are no longer seen as traitors or heroes, but as witnesses recounting "their" war... Silent for 30 years, the "Jeanson network" now bears witness to this history.

During the French Revolution in 1793, a member of the Convention, seduced by the Comtesse de Beaulieu, helps her to discover the truth about the relationship between Agnès de Fitz-James and the count who was guillotined.

The action takes place in the middle of the 18th century in France. A young woman and the man prepared to enter into a duel with pistols, in the presence of woman in the red. Libertine kills a person and flees on a white horse, while the woman in red is threatening revenge.

At the time of Tunisian independence, owners of large boats decide to sell, while many small fishermen soon find themselves without work. Their wives then decide to pool their gold rings to sell them and thus buy boats.