Discoveries from France World Cinema

A dedicated layabout (Jean-Pierre Cassel) bounces from relationship to relationship, moving on only when the prospect of employment presents itself.

Bahar, the commanding officer of the Daughters of the Sun, a battalion made up entirely of Kurdish female soldiers, is on the cusp of liberating their town, which has been overrun by ISIS extremists.

After losing her mother in a car accident that leaves her with a broken arm, 4-year-old Ponette struggles with anguish and fear. Left by her father with a caring aunt and her children, Ponette grieves, secretly hoping her mother will somehow come back. Confused by the religious explanations provided by adults, and challenged by the cruel taunts of a few children at school, little Ponette must make her way through her emotional turmoil.

Pierre Hoffman joins a prestigious school as a substitute teacher and soon notices, among some of his students, an unjustified hostility and a spark of violence in their eyes. Is it because the unspeakable tragedy they have just experienced? Is it because they seem to be extraordinarily gifted children? Is it because they have lost all hope for the future? From curiosity to obsession, Pierre will try to unlock their secret.

Six months before his retirement from the criminal police, inspector Joss finds his colleague Gouvion dead, in a poorly faked suicide attempt. Joss loses his temper, and investigates on his own, which leads him through the bas-fond of Paris...

In the middle of a performance at la Comédie-Française, an actor dies on stage, poisoned. Martin, member of the troupe and friend of the victim, becomes the center of everyone’s attention. Suspected by the police, he’s also chased by a mysterious organization, Le Parfum vert, that seems to have ordered the murder.

Two cops portrayed by Michelin Men chase an armed Ronald McDonald through the streets of a fictionalized, stylized city.

On location in Portugal, a film crew runs out of film while making their own version of Roger Corman's The Day the World Ended (1956). The producer is nowhere to be found and director Munro attempts to find him in hopes of being able to finish the film.

A Parisian criminal gang fall apart after challenges to the gang's leader lessen his influence.

Philippe, a young man who is actually blessed with luck and a pretty girlfriend, meets the seductive nurse Sarah and succumbs to her charms. From then on he repeatedly gets involved in sexual escapades with her. He risks his professional career, his real love and even his health for the beautiful black woman because he underestimated the dangers of an uncontrollable erotic obsession.

Two hitch-hikers are on the way to Marseilles pursued by her husband.

A village in the South of France, 1960. A band of country boys aged 7 to 14, led by fearless young Lebrac, wages an uncompromising battle against their sworn rivals, the kids from the neighboring village. A war of honor and allegiance that's been kept alive for generations, in which humiliation is the most fearsome defeat and no tactic is too extreme, including attacking the enemy stark naked!

Two policewomen from Internal Affairs arrive in a provincial precinct to investigate the death of an Algerian woman who was an informer. One punches, the other eyes, tip top.

Three little criminals get a tip for a great coup with lots of money in it. Unfortunately they lack the starting funds to buy the required welding torch. So they persuade their successful colleague Alphonse to join their team. But the well thought-out coup fails, and Alphonse is the only one of them who ends up in jail for several years. When he's released, he's out for revenge.

The eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull causes major disruptions to travelers' plans around the world. For Alain and Valérie, it's a catastrophe. Because to make it to the small Greek village in time for their daughter's wedding, this divorced couple, whose mutual hatred knows no bounds, will be obliged to set out on the road together.

Abel, Marianne and their 13-year-old son Joseph live together in Paris. Their everyday existence is thrown into turmoil when Abel and Marianne discover that Joseph has secretly sold valuables from the family home to finance a mysterious ecological project he and his friends have in Africa. They’re about to save the planet.

Maria, who's not as young as she used to be and who helps people older than her, is living from hand to mouth. She can't quite accept her precarious situation and steals a few euros here and there from all those lovely people she looks after with such devotion, and who adore her for it… But after an accusation of abuse of a vulnerable person, Maria winds up in police custody.

Johnny, a local activist, is wanted by the police after a robbery gone wrong. Paul, his childhood friend, comes back home after 15 years to find him before the police. Investigator Anna Radoszewski is also on Johnny’s trail. Thus begins a search in which memo- ries and secrets resurface. In a social context that shakes the town, everybody is looking for Johnny, who soon becomes the symbol of a revolt.

Just as the disheveled and alcoholic filmmaker Ismaël embarks on a difficult new film project, his life is sent into a tailspin. His wife Carlotta, presumed dead for 20 years, come crashing back into his life creating chaos in his work and his current romantic relationship with the starry-eyed astronomer Sylvia.

Fleeing from his wife in France to London, 45-year-old Pierre is barely able to support himself. He meets friendly Tom, who offers to help him make ends meet by working as a male escort.

June 1944. Europe is torn apart by war, and preparations are underway for the Normandy landings. Denis Porte continues his daily work with dedication at a British military base... which is fake. His mission: to move fake soldiers around every day and thus deceive the enemy. In the Porte family, there is a tendency for fathers and sons to die as heroes for France. So there is no question of Porte taking the slightest risk for his mother. Looking after a fake base is the most she will tolerate for her son. But after meeting Sami, an Algerian doctor who dreams of meeting De Gaulle, they decide during a drunken evening to take part. They set off bravely (and with quite a few drinks under their belts). Except that they don't have the right date or the right place. Add to that a hero who doesn't want to expose himself to danger. On D-Day, or almost...

In the French Riviera in the summer of 1915, Jean Renoir, son of the Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste, returns home to convalesce after being wounded in World War I. At his side is Andrée, a young woman who rejuvenates, enchants, and inspires both father and son.

Elegant, retired architect Shauna (70) crosses paths with Pierre, a happily married doctor in his 40s, who first made an impression on her in a brief meeting 15 years previously. Both are quite troubled to meet again and begin an affair. While Pierre’s family life is soon turned upside down, Shauna struggles with feelings she thought belonged to the past.

A police chief in northern France tries to solve a case where an old woman was brutally murdered on Christmas Eve. However, in a neighborhood rife with crime, everyone seems to be a suspect.

April 5, 1943: a battalion of the Foreign Legion arrives in El Ksour, Tunisia, to escort a fortune in gold bars to the home front. A German ambush awaits, and all but four die. Thanks to the street smarts of Sergeant Augagneur, the Legionnaires successfully counter attack. The bank manager and his seductive wife arrive, and so does a German lieutenant, whom the French arrest. Augagneur wants to steal the gold; warrant officer Mahuzard wants to do his duty. A series of alliances form and break apart, the group dwindles in number, and the gold heads south toward Betahoua. But in whose possession?

1793, French Revolution. For three years now, Charette, a young man retired from the Royal Navy, has been back home. In the country, the anger of the peasants rumbles: they call on the young retiree to take command of the rebellion. In a few months, the idle sailor becomes a charismatic leader and a shrewd strategist, bringing in his wake peasants, deserters, women, old people and children, of which he makes a formidable army. The fight for freedom has only just begun.

A thrilling mystery that unfurls in the alleys and on the rooftops of the French capital, Paris, over the course of one adventurous evening.

Two men pull off a daring daylight payroll heist in Milan, making a fast getaway. One is returning to France after years in hiding, needing money to start fresh with his family.

This documentary offers a rare look at domestic abuse through the concept of coercive control. With exceptional access to hearings in Poitiers, Colmar, and Paris, Karine Dusfour captures the first French trials to address this form of psychological violence. The film shows how coercive control traps partners through constant monitoring, a hidden terror affecting hundreds of thousands of women and children in France.

A little boy, obsessed with blindness and violence, slowly gets trapped in his own delusions.

In 2008, Sami Benboudaoud discovered the hell of Neuilly-sur-Seine. Ten years later, now that everything is for the best for Sami who brilliantly completes his studies of political science, nothing will go for his cousin Charles of Chazelle.

When his Granny comes down with a mysterious ailment, Franklin and his friends must search for the treasure of Turtle Lake. This is said to be a talisman that can cure the illness.

In this sword and sandal fantasy, a gladiator named Poseidon must battle a quartet of combatants in ancient Rome. If he wins, the son of Hercules will have his life and anything else he wants. Sure enough, he wins and asks that the life of a Christian girl be spared. But the girl refuses her liberty until all of her fellow believers are also released.

A comedy of manners set in a funeral home.

Best friends Ely and Lila share everything together, including their dream of a life beyond the Paris suburb they've lived in since childhood. One night they venture into the capital and meet a pair of wealthy young friends at a night club. Ashamed of their working-class background, and seeing an opportunity to escape, Ely and Lila begin to lie their way into this glamorous new world. Falling deeper into their web of lies, the young women begin to lose sight of themselves as their friendship is pushed to the limit.

After getting dumped on Christmas Eve, Angela must rebuild her life surrounded by her rebellious teenager, her tyrannical mother, her hysterical best friend, and a weird psychologist.

The Tiger is sent to oversee the excavation of a sunken ship. While busy to retrieve the gold tresure in it, he is constantly thwarted by international enemies. Among them is an old Nazi named Hans von Wunchendorf who dreams of world domination. He hides behind the codename "The Orchid" and needs the treasure to sustain a worldwide network of exiled former comrades. Once sanified by the gold his organisation plans to realise the endsieg after all.

The lawyer is visiting a prison to meet with a violent criminal who has been condemned to death. During the visit, things turn bad, there is a riot where prisoners escape and the criminal escapes taking a lawyer hostage.

How did Nazi Germany, from limited natural resources, mass unemployment, little money and a damaged industry, manage to unfurl the cataclysm of World War Two and come to occupy a large part of the European continent? Based on recent historical works of and interviews with Adam Tooze, Richard Overy, Frank Bajohr and Marie-Bénédicte Vincent, and drawing on rare archival material.

After having resigned from his post as President of the Republic, Jeff and his family are happy to be back in their village of Bouzolles. As the end of the year holidays approach, Cathy asks for a unique gift: to reconnect with her sister Maguy, and her husband Jean-Yves, with whom Jeff has been angry for 10 years. The reconciliation could have gone smoothly, except that during a lunch, Jeff and Jean-Yves, will once again find a subject of contention: Christmas. This family feud, which should never have left Bouzolles, will turn into a standoff between Jeff and a giant of Internet distribution.

A man struggles to support his family while remaining true to his ideals in this drama set in Europe during the 1930s. Orfeo Mancini and his wife Nella are a pair of working-class Italians who years ago swore allegiance to the Communist party. With Mussolini on the rise, Orfeo and Nella come to the conclusion that they are no longer welcome in their native land, and they decide to pull up stakes and move to America with their two children. As a result of some confusion en route, the Mancinis end up in Marseilles rather than the United States; needing work, Orfeo takes a job working as a manual laborer for a wealthy landowner. This requires a serious amount of pride-swallowing on Orfeo's part, since his new boss is an Italian expatriate who once courted Nella. The situation becomes all the more difficult for Orfeo when his employer throws his allegiances behind the growing fascist movement.

March 11, 2011. The biggest tsunami Japan has ever experienced triggers the Fukushima disaster. Risks are being downplayed but the foreign community in Tokyo is terrified by this tragic event and the fact that no one is capable of assessing its scope. Among them, Alexandra, a French executive newly arrived from Hong Kong to work in a bank, has to face this nuclear crisis. Torn apart between fol- lowing the company’s instructions and going back to her husband and children who are still in Hong Kong, she will find herself defending honor and given word, despite the pervading terror and chaos.

This complex and puzzling French drama walks the fine wavering line between the fictional and the very real as it tells the tale of a strangely erotic event in the life of a little girl and the musings of a schizophrenic woman. Also involved is an enigmatic spouse who prepares a surprise for a burglar.

Gerard is tired of being taken for a good apple by his beautiful family. He leaves everything and starts a garage in a village nestled at the bottom of the Gâtinais ... In front of the garage, there is a lovely inn, run by Barbara: a beautiful woman, disconcerting, mysterious, unpredictable. Their encounter will spark ...

Willy and Tony have a brilliant idea for getting out of it financially: stealing a dog from the brigade des stups. But everything does not go as planned and the two accomplices will have to rely on the most corrupt of the cops.

Betty and Victor, a rather ill-matched couple, tour unobtrusively around France in their motor-home, earning their living as petty con artists, until one day they find themselves involved in an international money scam which takes them on a globe-trotting adventure.

40-year-old foreman Vital is chosen by Alix (25) as a guinea pig in the anonymous study she is carrying out in her father's factory. The boss's daughter soon finds herself falling under the spell of this reserved, enigmatic worker as he begins to open up to her, revealing his dreams of another life.

A real estate agent from Paris arrives in Los Angeles to settle his late mother's estate, but a found photograph sends him on an impromptu journey to Mexico to find a woman named Lola.

"L'emprise" is the story of a drama, adapted from the moving book-witness "Acquitted", by Alexandra Lange. The story of a mother of four children, which is found in March 2012 in the dock of the foundations of Douai for the murder of her husband. How does a woman manage to kill the father of her children with a knife? During the three days of the trial, panting narrative takes us into the daily life of Alexandra, a mother that the society has failed to protect, neither she nor her children from the control of a monster she has loved. Through this incident that made headlines and upset the public, an event movie that raises the question of the balance of justice. Will she be heard?

Students of the prestigious dance school are dying under mysterious circumstances. Inspector Michel Eparvier suggests that the cause of death for women is physical exhaustion for dance lessons as their teacher Wolf brings the girls to exhaustion, making them to practice the technique of movement over and over again.

Days before the general election, after a girl from a rich family is murdered in an attempted rape, the editor-in-chief of a conservative tabloid tries to derail the police investigation in order to help the right-wing candidates supported by his bosses.

After losing their family home in Algeria in the 1920s, three brothers and their mother are scattered across the globe. Messaoud joins the French army fighting in Indochina; Abdelkader becomes a leader of the Algerian independence movement in France and Saïd moves to Paris to make his fortune in the shady clubs and boxing halls of Pigalle.

Holly is a young, courageous hedgehog, but woefully sheltered by her overprotective Dad. Walter is an overworked, exhausted rabbit with a few dozen kids of his own, who just wants a change in his predictable routine. When this unlikely duo crashes into each other’s lives, things take a drastic turn. After a bump to the head Walter now believes that he is Sir Balderdash the Great – a hero, a warrior, a legend. While Holly, who is just thrilled to be out of the house, gets swept up in Walter's concussion fuelled fantasy.

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?

Annie lives in harmony with her husband Laurent and her children: the sensitive elders Maximilien and César; the younger Antoine whom Poupi, never-complaining teen, helps raising him. But a positive pregnancy test will disturb the harmony.

Good dope is becoming rare in the North of Paris. Drugstores are being raided by junkies and gangs are nervous, fighting each others: the 'Viets', the 'Blackies', the 'Arabs', the neo-nazis 'Justiciers' and some mean gays. Vincent (Daniel Auteuil) is the good cop coming from Marseilles where he was a gangster. He's a soft method guy but also kicks assses hard and throw lethal dialog lines when needed. With the precious help of 'l'Arbalète'* (Marisa Berenson**), a tox' prostitute ex-member of Vincent's former gang, he will try to put order in that mess. There's also a violent and racist cop (Marcel Bozzuffi), Algeria veteran with hard methods, whose role could be more than to protect and to serve.

Two thieves, Hugo Sennart and Yan Kuq, wanted by the same police inspector, cross paths by chance.