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To describe the events spreading out in Aurore, in Royaume and in Bleu, suitable tools still have to be found ; up until now, nothing much has been said or done about a cinema that quite specifically deals with picture as a sensation. Then one can always attempt, as plainly as possible, to draw a few lines, trying to single out a few dimensions, a few questions, a few perspectives that run through these films and relate them to the history of pictures and cinema.

Astarti, the Greek name for Ishtar, is an archetype of a deep, nocturnal feminine that emerges from subterranean darkness. We experience an embodied cinematic experience realised through a sensuous aesthetic as we are invited to enter a strange and uncertain world of inner depths and hypnotising effects. There, we encounter three women actantes, embodied by the artists, who play mythic and magical female figures such as Medusa and Salome. They metamorphose, dance and enter trances where the body vibrates into transformation. Figures reveal themselves out of silence which is both the moment of creation and an eternal reality. The film itself actualises that which is inactual and gives form to blackness through a poetics of intimacy and an ethics of interpersonal relationships, which is founded in the artists’ own double authorship.

In May 1664, Louis XIV celebrated the completion of major expansion work at Versailles. For the occasion, the king called on Molière's talent to compose these evenings for the court and the comedians. These very familiar festivities spotlighted two historical figures: Louis XIV and Molière. These entertainments are composed of three plays by Molière: La Princesse d'Elide, Le Mariage forcé and three acts of Tartuffe. Maurice Béjart staged these gargantuan evenings at the Comédie-Française, where excess was omnipresent in these pleasures.

Notes on the movie Passion

At the edge of the Brocéliande forest is a site where a castle was built, that of Boutavant (Boutavam). We interrogated the ruins and discovered an original defense system.

Marie (Marlene Jobert) is a pretty female physician who attracts the strong romantic interest of two brothers during World War I in this uninspired drama by Gérard Vergez. The brothers meet her when she is on duty in Turkey -- one brother is stationed there and the other becomes her ambulance driver. Since Marie has just lost her husband in combat, she is not at first open to another relationship but finally begins an affair with the older brother. Jealousy rears its ugly head, and the younger and older brother start to compete for her favors. She is eventually separated from the two brothers after the oldest -- imprisoned for supposed sympathy with the Russians -- is sprung from jail. Marie is later imprisoned herself, and it will be a long time before she is able to find out the fate of those she knew during the days of combat, including the two brothers.

Outtakes from the movie

The shooting diary of a film shot in France and in the United States. Using photos of Paris and of New York City, excerpts of his former films, statements by friends of his and shooting sequences of the film itself, tormented filmmaker Marcel Hanoun has made a heterogeneous and unclassifiable film about the difficulty of filming.

A fancy dress ball takes place in a strange palace. The host is unknown. The theme: "your idea of human representation”. During the course of this mysterious and rather frightening evening, each guest is transformed into his own character and the intrigue thickens.

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."

Film directed by Jean-Louis Koula.

Denis and Rachid, a black and an Algerian, are looking for an apartment in Paris. Both meet Virginie, whocould rent them the vacant apartment of her stepfather, but she'd rather rent to some low-lifes than to a black or an Algerian.

Three portraits of young people today who are confronted with an indifferent and uninspiring society, whether at school, at home, or in the workplace.

You'll see Johnny Rotten or rather his ghost Johnny Lyndon insulting human herd with "this is religion, your religion". The last images of a film which lets you no escape, no more escape than the punkette who exhibits her genitals in a toilet hallway, no more escape than all these rockstars who belch to fill the void. On the music aspect, there is a combinatorial saturation of sounds that looks like a requiem. The images : uninterrupted movement un a daily apocalyptic space. This is about savagery, frantic intoxication, suicidal energy.

The creation of spring.

A retired doctor, who participated in the events of May 1968, is led to reconnect with former comrades still active in the underground.

Héléna Werner leads a reclusive and deserted life. Alone, as if withdrawn from the world in her apartment of refined luxury. She places an ad for a private secretary, a "handyman" who would take her away from the daily grind. As soon as he starts working, Milo adopts an intriguing behavior. From the start, he takes everything in hand and the doors of the apartment close on them both.

To the music of Indoor Life, Geneviève Herve & Grecha Cargo question the mirror of femininity.

This effective, straightforward story about the birth and on-going life of a young man at the beginning of the 20th century reflects the political and social history of his time. Adrien (child, Bertrand Sautereau, adult, Serge Dominque) was born in a field to a mother who had lived as a shepherdess. She died when he was born. As he grows up under harsh treatment by his grandfather, World War I and labor unrest simmer and explode in the background. Finally rebelling against his grandfather, Adrien runs away and stays with another family for awhile. But the lure of finding his place in the world continues. He gets a job and eventually falls in love, though nothing in his life comes along easily and some of the biases he experiences have more than social nuances as Europe simmers again on the way to World War II.

Between February and September 1940, Louis Jouvet worked with Claudia, ascending to the National Superior Conservatory of Dramatic Art in Paris, the second scene of Elvire by Don Juan de Molière. These theater lessons, re-transcribed in the smallest details, are the opportunity to watch the comedian learn. This one tries to undo what it calls “the covert me who possesses it” and the channel to invest all its role, to play without artifice. In 1986, Brigite Jaques-Wajeman excelled in this course to put on an internationally successful show

A family settles in an old castle with plans to, among other things, turn its former cemetery into a swimming pool. However, soon they find out that, in ancient times, pagan rituals took place there involving the sacrifice of young virgins. When an evil entity starts luring young boy Mark into killing himself in order to become the next sacrificial offering, something must be done to save him. Written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin who wrote many episodes of Dr. Who.

Clairvoyant Medium on the tracks of Jules Vernes steps towards the Center of Earth.

Emmanuel, 37, lives in Paris with his wife, Irene, and his daughter Anne, 14 years old. He accidentally discovers that Irene is receiving mail in the remaining mail. She refuses to follow Emmanuel to Italy where he has to write a biography of Filippo Lippi. Distraught, Emmanuel decided to leave immediately for Florence.

TV series directed by Varda in which she gives thoughts to her favorite images and why she is drawn to them (in short one minute segments per image)

Part of a series in which foreign filmmakers portray a region or town in France. Otar Iosselani looks at the Basque region and its inhabitants.

The folks who populate the rundown hotel in this story have all come there from someplace which offered a modicum of hope. Gloria, who runs the place, earns most of her money as a stripper. She lives there with her two daughters and a son with an untreated brain tumor. Charlie, who is forever in and out of jail, is Gloria's sometime lover. A recent check-in is there hoping she can work up the courage to commit suicide, since her rich doctor husband ran off and left her. Another resident is Tim, who keeps company with his dog and his booze in equal measure. A schoolteacher comes by from time to time, hoping to do these people some good, but in choosing this lot to work with, she proves to be just as much of a loser as the rest of them.

Originally a French softcore film, the only version currently available is the Italian Hardcore release (released as Letti bagnati).

Part of the omnibus 'Sexy Folies' aired on French television on 1986. A veiled woman watches a couple have sex on the beach.

A drama of manners, spiced by light moments, describing the "love stories" of a mother and her daughter. The two women spend a summer together. Madeline, the mother, a professional, independent woman, begins a romantic relationship with an engineer after ending a previous relation. For her part, Renée, her 20-year old daughter, tries to see her father again and dreams of stable love.

This film places side by side the mirrored image of an installation/performance, by the artist Miles McKane. Rather than documenting the piece, the film tries to restitute the spatial dimensions which occurred in the original piece. The participants movements and the panoramic metaphorically reproduce the base element of the installation, namely the white cone.

Luc Moullet turns the camera on himself as he attempts to overcome his fear of large bodies of water and learn to swim.

Documentary about the process canned pineapple takes from cultivation to sale.

A lonely woman, on the road, driving an old bus. Every evening, at the chance of a school, a festival hall, a fairground, she shows the films of her husband-great-grandfather, who committed suicide six years ago. In the course of her travels, she consoles herself with a frustrated teacher, a village fool, a clown without illusions or an immature dancer.

A young gay man falls head over heels in love with an Algerian labourer he meets in transvestite bar where he is a regular.

A man and his sister meet at a seaside village to discuss their relationship.

A new prison at Mauzac (Dordogne), built in 1985, opens in 1986. It is designed for 240 prisoners. Its concept and modus operandi are inspired by the liberal tradition of the old Mauzac camp to which it is linked by a bridge.

1981: at the moment the left won power, French television commissioned Godard to make a film on the theme of change. Like Lettre à Freddy Buache, this film is born of the impossibility of carrying out the commission. For the space where change appears is not the image but the gap between images.

A man tries different ways to open a Coca Cola bottle.

An elephant saves an unfortunate whale from being paraded in front of the public and takes it away with the circus caravan to put it back into the sea.

After graduating from high school where she was a boarder, Reine Ducasse decides to settle down with her rich father Louis in his luxurious apartment. She has just begun her studies in history and has a good friend, Frédéric, a medical student who wouldn't mind being more than just that. Around her, strange fellows attract her attention. Who is Philippe, allegedly Louis's stockbroker? And what about Marguerite who presents herself as her father's former secretary? Even more puzzling is the video cassette she finds in her father's place, showing young motorbikers distributing bundles of banknotes. Some time later, Charles, one of the bikers appearing on the video, rings the doorbell: he is wounded.

A girl and a boy are forced to flee when they hurt a corrupt cop.