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Moustapha Alassane, Cineaste of the Possible

Moustapha Alassane is a living legend in African cinema. His adventures take us to the era of “pre-cinema”, to the times of magical lantern and Chinese shadows. He is the first director of Nigerien cinema and animation films in Africa. He tells very old stories with current technology, but he also narrates the most current events with the most archaic means. This documentary not only tells the adventure of a human being and an extraordinary professional, but the memories of a generation, the history of a country, Niger, in its golden age of cinema.

Moustapha Alassane, Cineaste of the Possible

NR 2008
The departure

An aspiring filmmaker tries to restore her fading childhood memories through someone else's travel stories.  One evening in front of a bar, Hunay bumps into an acquaintance, Benjamin. He recently visited her native country, Azerbaijan, which she had to flee in 2011 with her family for political reasons. A precipitous departure which has resulted in her feeling further and further removed from her hometown, family, and childhood memories every day. What happens when we can no longer return to our hometown, when our childhood memories are fading away? Can memories stay alive through someone else’s?

The departure

NR N/A
Terrorists in Retirement

Not just another documentary on the French resistance movement, this film focuses on one particular group of underground fighters in France: those from Eastern Europe. Many were Jews and all had fled their native countries before the war broke out. They were among the most staunch and fearless enemies of fascism, as shown here in personal interviews and memoirs of war-time experiences. But the most famous of these immigrants were 23 who were rounded up among several hundred Parisians in 1943, tried for their activities, and executed -- all were immigrants under the leadership of the Armenian poet Manouchian. After their execution, Paris was papered with posters decrying these 23 martyrs as "foreign communists."

Terrorists in Retirement

9.0 1985
Here We Drown Algerians

In response to the call of the Front de libération nationale (F.L.N., the National Liberation Front), thousands of Algerians from Paris and its surroundings march on October 17, 1961, to protest against the curfew imposed on them. This peaceful demonstration will be violently put down by the police. 50 years on, the filmmaker sheds light on this still taboo subject. Blending testimony and unseen archive footage, history and memory, past and present, the film relates the different stages in these events and reveals the strategy and methods applied at the highest level of the French state: manipulation of public opinion, the systematic challenge of every accusation, the censoring of information in order to prevent investigation.

Here We Drown Algerians

6.8 2011
André Payraud, le nageur de l'impossible

André Payraud, born in 1948 in Passy, ​​Haute-Savoie, nicknamed "the swimmer of the impossible," is a major figure in French whitewater swimming, known by the nickname "Dédé the Carpet." He is renowned for his daring descents of large mountain rivers and for having helped popularize the sport from the 1980s onward. His achievements include swimming down the Mont Blanc torrent in 1980, the first in a long series of filmed feats: swimming Everest in 1982; the Ganges in 1985; the Colorado; Annapurna; the Jordan River—no river can stop Dédé in his quest for adventure. For his whitewater exploits, André Payraud was made a Knight of the National Order of Merit and received the Silver Medal for Youth and Sports. Alongside his exploits around the world, Dédé set up the first rafting company in Haute-Savoie in 1982, in Domancy, Session Raft, Aventures Payraud mont-Blanc..

André Payraud, le nageur de l'impossible

10.0 1999
Metronome (120BPM)

Metronome (120 BPM) is a film directed by Konstantin Lucas Mikaberidze, Lola Quivoron & Christian Reifert for the workshop "Musique At Work" supervised by Noëlle Pujol for the first year of Masters students in Film Studies at the University Paris Diderot (Paris 7). Shot in one take, Alexandre Babeanu records three musiciens -- Émilien de Bortoli, Adrien Katz & Min Yin II -- who improvise one after the other for two minutes on a fixed tempo of 120 beats per minutes. From these recordings, he creates a remix that he plays back to his collaborators.

Metronome (120BPM)

NR 2012
Ma'ohi Nui: In the Heart of the Ocean My Country Lies

For thirty years in the late-twentieth century, the people of Tahiti survived dozens of offshore nuclear tests by the French government. Since the country was colonized in 1880, the blasts left Tahitians picking through the remnants of their islands and culture in an effort to keep indigenous knowledges alive. The film offers a poetic glimpse into contemporary Tahiti, and the colonial struggles its people still face as they strive to sustain their way of life.

Ma'ohi Nui: In the Heart of the Ocean My Country Lies

8.0 2018
Brûlez Rome !

At the time of Nero, the Empire is at the height of its power, but Rome, where a million inhabitants live, is afraid of its enemies, of foreigners, of barbarians. Rome is afraid of the Tyrant and of its own power. And all these fears seem to crystallize in that of fire, more than anything else feared in this megalopolis that so often catches fire. In 64 A.D. the most terrible fire that the city has ever known broke out. It is said that it was set on the orders of Nero, in order to overwhelm the Christians who were accused of it. The watchmen, Celer and Theseus, intervene at the risk of their lives. This fictional documentary tells the story of the adventures of these two "firemen" in Rome during the Empire. An astonishing journey through time, the story of the life of men: customs, family, lifestyle, politics, education, leisure.

Brûlez Rome !

NR 2005
Africa, I Will Fleece You

This documentary of repressive political realities in Cameroon begins with the 1990 publication of an open letter to President Biya calling for a national conference - and the immediate arrest of the letter's author and publisher. The narration then examines the nation's colonial history, beginning with the first German missionary in 1901, the establishment of schools, French occupation following World War I, the paucity of books written by and published by Cameroonians, and the repression of the CPU, a leftist organization of the 1950s and 1960s. Cameroon and its people are the lark, its feathers plucked first by colonialism and then by native strongmen: 'Alouette, je te plumerai.'

Africa, I Will Fleece You

6.1 1993
The astonishing destiny of General Luo

Born in Austria in 1903, Jacob Rosenfeld was imprisoned in Dachau. He manages to flee and takes refuge in Shanghai, like 30,000 other people. He exercised his profession there and sought to get involved in 1941 alongside the revolutionaries of the Chinese Communist Party. Rosenfeld becomes a surgeon on the war front between China and Japan. Thanks to his talents as a doctor and an organizer, he soon became close to Mao Tsé-Toung. In 1945, he was appointed general, responsible for the health of the armies and the entire liberated area. He is now called General Luo. Later, he became the Minister of Health of the first communist government. Thanks to his journal found in 2001, this documentary traces its extraordinary destiny.

The astonishing destiny of General Luo

NR 2004
Super Spider

They are said to be poisonous, evil, hairy and treacherous. Whether from their physical appearance or their behaviour, spiders suffer a bad reputation. We know little of their habits and we often fear them. And yet the spider is a creature of many powers and an endless source of amazement. Did you know that spiders can fly? That they can jump more than 40 times their size? With more than 40,000 species, the spider offers a rich field of study for international scientists. Thanks to some extraordinary filming techniques, this documentary takes us to the heart of the world of spiders – a world which remains largely a mystery, even though we live with spiders on a daily basis

Super Spider

8.2 2012
L'abri

Farida runs a three-star hotel in Nîmes. For the past year, she has been receiving a singular clientele. Homeless people, migrants, women victims of violence, have found shelter there during the health crisis. Through successive confinements, the hotel has become a micro-society in which each person must learn to live with the other, whatever their history and difference. Between the interventions of social workers, mutual aid and waiting, an inventory of emergency accommodation is drawn up.

L'abri

NR 2023
Unearthed

In 1967, extensive archaeological excavations took place near the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, during which over 16,000 objects belonging to deportees were uncovered. The excavations became the subject of a 14-minute documentary film, shot on location by director Andrzej Brzozowski. Ania Szczepańska followed in the footsteps of this film and the entire event with her film Unearthed, which she worked on for 14 years. Her documentary follows the author’s search for the circumstances surrounding the making of the film, and the significance of the excavations themselves.

Unearthed

NR 2025