152 Matches Found
In the middle of the 17th century, the Marquise de Sévigné wanted to make her daughter a brilliant and independent woman in her own image. But the more she tries to control the young woman's destiny, the more she alienates her. Mother and daughter then experience the throes of a singular and devastating passion. A major work of French literature is born from this devastation.
After twenty years away, Odysseus washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The king has finally returned home, but much has changed in his kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan war.
Boundary-pushing Russian dancer and actress Ida Rubinstein selects renowned French composer Maurice Ravel to compose the music for her next ballet. Ravel ends up creating his greatest success ever: Boléro.
From his poor childhood to his rise to fame, from his triumphs to his failures, from Paris to New York, discover the exceptional journey of an artist. Intimate, intense, fragile and indestructible, devoted to his art until the very end, here is one of the most immortal singers of all time: MONSIEUR AZNAVOUR.
Paris, 1894. Who is Fanni, who claims to be voluntarily locked up in a women-only mental institution? Searching for her mother among the multitude of so-called 'madwomen', Fanni discovers a community of modern heroines who defy her expectations, along with the unexpected friendship of fellow patients. The sumptuous and renowned 'Party of Fools' of the asylum is in preparation. Politicians, artists, and socialites will flock to it. It’s her last hope of escaping the closing trap.
French-American artist Niki de Saint-Phalle, from the age of 23, is a model and an aspiring actor who is married and has a two year old daughter. Together, they flee the U.S. during the oppressive McCarthy era and come to France, where they experience a short-lived euphoria. Soon, distant and frightening memories begin to emerge in Niki’s mind. Her vocation as an artist will be her salvation.
In 1933, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, two audacious and visionary directors, dared to create a motion picture that eclipsed everything seen until then: when King Kong was released, it was celebrated as an artistic and technical revolution and became the first myth created by the young cinematic art.
Once upon a time, a poor woodcutter and his wife lived in a great forest. Cold, hunger, poverty, and a war raging all around them meant their lives were very hard. One day, the woodcutter's wife rescues a baby. A baby girl thrown from one of the many trains that constantly pass through the forest. This baby, this "most precious of cargoes", will transform the lives of the poor woodcutter's wife and her husband, as well as those whose paths the child will cross—including the man who threw her from the train. And some will try to protect her, whatever the cost. Their story will reveal the worst and the best in the hearts of men.
In one of those wonderful coincidences of history, lumière, the French word for “light,” was also the last name of brothers Auguste and Louis, whose brilliant invention, the cinematograph, helped to inaugurate the most beloved art form of the last 130 years. Institute Lumière director Thierry Frémaux uses Lumière, Le Cinema! to guide the viewer through over a hundred shorts—some famous, some forgotten, some never before seen—directed by Lumière and company. In the process, Frémaux illuminates how the brothers employed the camera as a creative instrument as they (and their operators) mastered framing, staging, and subject selection for quotidian and exotic microdocumentaries as well as the first ever fictional motion pictures. The result is not only a glorious re(telling) of the genesis of cinema but a profound meditation on the beautiful world captured—and the mysterious world imagined—by the Lumières.
Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) - 1978. Three French journalists are invited by the Khmer Rouge to conduct an exclusive interview of the regime's leader, Pol Pot. The country seems ideal. But behind the Potemkin village, the Khmer Rouge regime is declining and the war with Vietnam threatens to invade the country. The regime is looking for culprits, secretly carrying out a large scale genocide. Under the eyes of the journalists, the beautiful picture cracks, revealing the horror. Their journey progressively turns into a nightmare.
A revolutionary militant, a thug, an underground writer, a butler to a millionaire in Manhattan. But also a switchblade-waving poet, a lover of beautiful women, a warmonger, a political agitator, and a novelist who wrote of his greatness. Eduard Limonov’s life story is a journey through Russia, America, and Europe during the second half of the 20th century.
When French painter Pierre Bonnard met Marthe de Méligny, he didn’t know this self-proclaimed aristocrat would become the cornerstone of his life and work. From this moment, she became more than just a muse for the “painter of happiness”, appearing in more than a third of his work. Together, they reached their artistic fulfillment thanks to a colourful love, different from the standards of their time, nurturing the great mystery around their relationship. Based on a true story.
1759, Mauritius Island, Indian Ocean. The island is controlled by French settlers and the deported slave population live in fear while toiling in the sugar cane plantations. Unlike her disillusioned father Massamba, 16-year-old Mati refuses to keep her head down and accept her fate.
Russia, China and Iran: three former empires are determined to take their revenge and reassert their power after centuries of humiliation. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, they have never been so aligned on the international stage. Their common goal: to put an end to Western hegemony, restore their zone of influence and propose a new model of society. To achieve this, they are waging a hybrid war against the democracies: military, technological, economic, informational and ideological. Are they on the verge of joining forces to create a new world order?
A young, struggling actress lands her dream role in a film by an emerging Italian director, starring alongside an American superstar. What begins as her big breakthrough quickly turns into a living hell.
In February 1944, in a courtyard at Fresnes Prison, the Germans staged a spectacle to stigmatize a group of communist resistance fighters—all foreigners and mostly Jewish—who had been arrested a few weeks earlier. The propaganda aimed to discredit these fighters, portraying them as terrorists and criminals, even though they had managed to carry out numerous attacks against the occupiers in Paris. The red poster, plastered in thousands of copies across the country, would immortalize them in legend. They were subsequently executed at Mont-Valérien, near Paris. Missak Manouchian, the Armenian who led these fighters, now embodies this group in the collective memory as he is enshrined in the Panthéon, on behalf of all his comrades, 80 years after their execution.
222 A.D. During yet another decadent party, Emperor Heliogabalus recalls his former lover Zotikos from prison. He becomes a witness to the narcissistic cult of Heliogabalus, in the midst of the destructive madness that will lead to his downfall.
Documentary on Les Charlots, known as The Crazy Boys in the English-speaking world, a group of French musicians, singers, comedians and film actors who were popular in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s.
1792. Louis XVI, his wife Marie Antoinette, and their children have been arrested and imprisoned in the Tour du Temple, a sinister chateau in Paris, awaiting their trial. Far from the splendour of Versailles, they are isolated and vulnerable for the first time in their lives.
The story takes us back to 1930 and centres around Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, an Airmail pilot in Argentina. When his best friend who happens to be Airmail’s best pilot Henri Guillaumet disappears in the Andes, Saint-Ex decides to set out in search of him, against all odds. This impossible quest forces him to push beyond his limits, turning his capacity to dream into his greatest strength...
The extraordinary life and career of the Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, a brilliant and charismatic, but also rebellious, favorite son of the Soviet Union.
February, 1871. On the eve of the Paris Commune, Rose Beuret, Auguste Rodin's life partner, is alone in the studio. As Rodin is away, she is in charge of one of his unfinished sculptures – clay must stay moist every day. To forget her solitude, Rose takes refuge in the daily care of this mute, incomplete piece. While revolt is rumbling outside, Rose locks herself in the studio and devotes herself entirely to the statue.
After waiting 74 years to ascend to the throne, Charles III fell ill less than a year after his coronation. The king's health is a cause for concern throughout the kingdom, and the vague statements issued by his medical team raise more questions than they answer. Michael Dixon, head of the king's medical team, is a fervent advocate of homeopathy and alternative medicine. His appointment has been highly controversial.
Royal Palace Theatre, Paris . February 17th 1673, the King’s theatre group is playing « Le Malade Imaginaire » when Moliere started spitting blood, but he takes the decision to keep playing until the end. During his agony, he let enter in the theatre all the elements and ghost who made his life. Starting a fight to preserve his dignity, he plan to transfigure his death in a last laugh instrument.
France. End of the 19th century. Louise Violet 40, a Parisian teacher, is sent on a mission to the French countryside. But in a place where the daily life is linked to the seasons, land and crops, she must first convince parents to send their kids to school. With the help of the mayor, she is gradually accepted by the parents and their children. But soon, her past catches up with her. Despite the obstacles she faces, Miss Violet will give her heart and soul to her belief that education is the key to freedom.
18th century. Anne, grown up, has to "change her clothes" because of her attraction to women. Now a man, he marries and has a great love affair with his new wife, until his past catches up with him. The shocking true story of Anne Grandjean, born intersex, and their resounding trial, which still questions all our certainties today.
For decades, pupils at the children's village of Riaumont, in northern France, run by Catholic monks and priests, were abused: until 2019, thousands of children suffered beatings, forced labor and sexual violence.
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.
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.
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?
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.
France, 1640. Lawyer Maitre Pompignac has never won a case: all his clients are dead, either drawn and quartered, impaled or scalded... One day, a young woman comes to him and asks him to defend an inno- cent girl: 11-year-old Roxane, wrongly accused of killing a Marshal of France. Pompignac accepts, with- out realising that Roxane is in fact not an 11-year-old child, but a goat...
A decade before the French Revolution, in a country riven with bitter polemics, Gluck throws the history of opera into confusion by raising it to an unheard-of peak of tragic intensity. Experiencing his two Iphigenias in a single evening goes beyond the norms of operatic life: it is to enter the very heart of the curse on the family of King Atreus of Mycenae, to follow a logical destiny through a cycle of endless violence. How does the victim of Aulis become the murderess of Tauris? That is the burning question that Dmitri Tcherniakov must adress, plunging the spectator into the midst of a household haunted by the dead and setting in train an implacable process of dehumanization, with parallels to our world today. Conducting Le Concert d’Astrée, Emmanuelle Haïm drives this dual tragedy to the summit of its expressive power, leaving humanity to be translated through arias of the utmost poignancy.
In Amsterdam, conductor Emmanuelle Haïm and director Calixto Bieito take on Handel’s famous Giulio Cesare.
1970 something. As the end of an era of repression approaches, a bourgeois family still in its bubble of power spends its vacation in a country house. The teenage cousins spend their days in indolence, interrupted by fits of hysteria. It will only take the introduction of an outside element for violence to erupt.
Three different epochs through the gaze of three children: Zelinda, who loses her mother to the Spanish Flu during World War I and sees the specter of Nazism loom; Assunta, who lives during the Nazi occupation between bombings, raids, and executions; Icaro, who abandons the countryside during the Years of Lead (“Anni di Piombo”) and accepts a new life. A story across the difficulties and the troubles of the 20th century between memories, affection, nostalgia, and gratitude.
This film traces the journeys of four French women during World War II. Now aged 90 and over, they recount in vivid detail and with incredible dignity how they survived from 1939 until liberation, sharing intimate testimonies in which their own stories intertwine with the greater narrative. Four women's destinies (a member of the Resistance, a survivor of the Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen camps, the daughter of museum curators, the daughter of a soldier) who lived through the war with courage and self-sacrifice.
At the beginning of the XXth century, in an isolated mountain village, a little girl must accomplish a rite of passage to join a group of teenagers. Away from the village lives an old shepherd, solitary and mysterious, around whom rumors swirl. When strange phenomena occur, suspicions turn towards him. But everything changes the day the little girl disappears, the village ignites and everything flares up.
The Mandrin Cave in the Rhône Valley is a fascinating excavation site. Archaeologist Ludovic Slimak discovered fossils and flints here, proving that Neanderthals inhabited the cave for over 80,000 years. The first Neanderthal in France for half a century was also unearthed in the cave: He was given the name Thorin.
In the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the figure of the fool held a firm place in society and was omnipresent in art, as he embodied the fears of Europeans in a convulsive time of great discoveries and religious controversies.
Pushing the limits of the human race: that is what runners aspire to when they take to the Olympic 100-meter track every four years. But for Usain Bolt, the record holder for the distance with his explosive 9.58 seconds, to become the fastest sprinter in history, crossing the finish line at some 44 km/h, it took more than a century of technical refinement. From the early days of sprinting to Usain Bolt's records, directors Jean-Christophe Rosé and Benoît Heimermann trace the history of the 100 meters, the flagship event of the Olympic Games, and its champions.
