Discoveries from France World Cinema

A movie producer, director and assistant take the Trans-Europ-Express from Paris to Antwerp. They get the idea for a movie about a drug smuggler on their train and visualize it while taping the script.

Yan is a successful artist. One day he is waiting for his date Florence to turn up at his apartment. As the doorbell rings, he finds another young woman in underwear on his doorstep: his neighbor Eva! She tells him she locked herself out of her apartment and insists that he helps her. Whilst Yan is trying to enter Eva's apartment via their adjoining balcony, his phone rings. It is Florence, and she is not impressed when a female voice answers the phone. At this point, Eva's rabidly jealous boyfriend Boris returns home. Seeing Yan in his apartment, he deduces that Eva has been having an affair behind his back. Florence then turns up and Yan tries in vain to explain the situation. By chance, Florence's husband suddenly puts in an appearance. After that, it all starts to get a bit complicated.

In 1958, in the French Alp, the young servant Anna Jurin arrives in Saint Ange Orphanage to work with Helena while the orphans moved to new families. Anna, who is secretly pregnant, meets the last orphan, Judith, left behind because of her mental problems, and they become closer when Anna find that Judith also hear voices and footsteps of children.

Strange things are happening in the evening at the mansion. Glass things break without any apparent reason. The Professor, somewhat apathetic to the whole series of events, leaves the following day to attend a conference on nuclear physics in Geneva. Foreign powers get wind of the Professor's work and send their agents to investigate.

The club as a place of endless (im)possibilities. A man and a woman wait here together for 25 years for a mysterious, all-changing event to occur. From 1979 to 2004: from disco to techno. A love story and an obsession.

Tony is a macho middle-aged school bus driver in the provinces with no friends or relations. A sudden heart attack throws him into a tailspin. Tony's convinced he's going to die. When his cardiologist warns him : We all need others. Alone, we're nothing. Tony decides to reconnect with the daughter he abandoned twenty years earlier, when she was just a baby. Still a coward, he's unable to screw up the courage to actually confront her directly. So he decides to sign up for a dance class she's teaching in Paris. Incognito, of course. To get to know her gradually… in a desperate attempt to give some meaning to his empty life. In the process, he has more than a few dance steps to learn!

A mysterious woman, dressed in black and carrying a small suitcase, arrives in Nice and tries in vain to get a job in a luxury goods shop. She ends up in a plush hotel where a solitary middle-aged man, engages her to be his companion. They introduce themselves - she is Charlotte, he is Paul. Both are reluctant to talk about their past; both need someone to make their present predicament more tolerable. Unbeknownst to either of them, Charlotte is being followed by another man, who seems intent on revenge...

In New York, an absurd coincidence links the lives of a Yugoslavian hitman, his ex-wife and her new partner, a policeman whose father was a criminal. His code name is "Uncle Vanya". He grew up in Bosnia, an orphan of both parents and, having never met them, he does not know whether he is a Serb, a Croat or a Muslim. A victim of his fate and his past in war-torn Bosnia, he has become a hitman. He would like to stop killing but he can't.

Antonio, a policeman (carabiniere), has an order to take two children (Rosetta and her brother Luciano) from Milan to Sicily to an orphanage. Their mother has been arrested for forcing Rosetta (11 years old) to work as a prostitute. First the relation between Antonio and the children is tough, but it relaxes so they become temporary friends.

The history of the peplum genre, known as sword-and-sandal cinema, set in Antiquity, from the silent film era to the present day.

During the stagecoach trip of a frightened group of inhabitants of Rouen, Elisabeth Rousset, known as "Boule de Suif", renders these people a signal service, but comes up against their stupidity and their sufficiency. A little later, Boule de Suif assassinates the formidable Prussian lieutenant whom his friends had nicknamed Fifi and who shamelessly displayed his taste for pillage and his sadistic tendencies.

When the silent cinema learned to speak, the audience was surprised not only by the voices of the actors and the sound effects, but also by a new element, the music, which, combined with the dance and an unprejudiced imagination, gave rise to a new genre, as important to Hollywood cinema as the western was: the musical. A journey through the history of this genre, from its beginnings to the present day.

An advertising photographer, François, has agreed to sell the poetic script of one of his friends to a porn-maker without his knowledge. But Christine, François' fiance, doesn't want him to do so, especially when the naive friend has succeeded in recruiting the young daughter of his employer to play in what he thinks is a romantic love movie.

A young Parisian advertising executive becomes so captivated by the unsettling charm of his mysterious new employer that he eventually abandons his family and friends, viewing it a privilege to let the ubiquitous employer take over his home, his life, his desire. Only his wife remains suspicious, recognizing both the pathos and the evil in the man’s soul-stealing power.

Lucas is a scientist who works near the European experimental project that focus on advanced ‘human neuron research’. The project is to transfer neuron information from one human mind to another. Lukas is chosen to connect his mind with a comatose woman he named Aurora.

A bank clerk is drawn into the risky world of a gorgeous gambling addict.

A woman suffering from amnesia reconstructs her life from audiotapes and discovers that she has had a sordid past, involved in prostitution, and unusual romantic relationships.

1953, colonized Algeria. Fanon, a young black psychiatrist is appointed head doctor at the Blida-Joinville Hospital. He was putting his theories of ‘Institutional Psychotherapy’ into practice in opposition to the racist theories of the Algies School of Psychiatry, while a war broke out in his own wards.

Secret agents Mike, Stan, and Chloé, tasked with retrieving a stolen briefcase, discover it holds a secret map to hidden World War II treasures. Betrayed by their own French Minister of Defense and hunted by a former Marine, Vogel, the team faces internal conflicts and danger. As alliances shift, secrets unravel, and battles ensue, they must thwart Vogel's plan to claim the treasures, setting the stage for an international treasure hunt filled with unexpected twists and unresolved romantic entanglements.

Twelve-year old Theo plays for a local soccer club and has enough talent to eventually go pro. But his father has been on a self-destructive spiral ever since he started drinking and got divorced, and Theo feels powerless and anxious as he watches his dad slowly destroying his own life. But he refuses to give up on him. When a recruiter for a prestigious British club takes notice of him, Theo sees an opportunity to rekindle his father’s hope, but despite all his efforts he is not selected. So he decides to lie and say he was, hoping to make his father happy and proud. Theo’s dad is so overjoyed that he puts all his heart into helping his son prepare for “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” gradually regaining his taste for life and motivation for the future. Until the lie reaches unforeseen proportions and completely spins out of control. Thankfully, Theo’s little lie has already operated big change and generated so much hope, that life is able to get back on track. Only better!

Camille arrives in Ouessant, the island of her birth off the Brittany coast, to sell the family home. She spends a last night in the house during which she discovers a secret. In 1963 a man came to work with her father, who was the Jument lighthouse operator. He only stayed two months, but his presence proved to be a disturbing catalyst.

The Catholic Church secretly investigates Caravaggio as the Pope weighs whether to grant him clemency for killing a rival.

A poor but ambitious young man arrives in Paris and settles down in the boarding house run by Madame Vauquer. He soon gets to know the guests: Victorine Taillefer, a young lady her rich father refuses to recognize; Horace Bianchon, a medical student; Monsieur Vautrin, a mysterious and disconcerting man; Goriot, a rich merchant who spent all his fortune for his daughters, Delphine and Anastasie, to make a rich marriage. Eugène becomes friends with Goriot but while the former, thanks to his cousin Madame de Beauséant, is introduced in high society, Goriot, both exploited and scoffed at by his daughters, continues his descent into hell.

A female psychologist wants to understand the minds of a confessed serial killer who spent the last five years in a mental hospital because of his state.

While France is on strike, Jean, a Parisian bookseller, opens his shop. A former trade unionist, he has in fact decided not to take part in the movement. However, a phone call from his friend René awakens his enthusiasm.

A farce, Hoskins plays a photographer who specializes in religious pictures who searches for a model for Jesus. He does a favor for a friend and finds himself doing a voice track for a porno movie with Natasha Richardson. Hoskins finds his model for Jesus in Jeff Goldblum and a romantic triangle begins in which Goldblum finds adoring crowds believing him to be Jesus and then begins to believe it himself.

Three years after the Paris triathlon disaster, the center of the Capital is submerged, Sophia and Adil reunite for a high-risk mission: to track Lilith, the original predator, in the shark-infested Seine. There, they will discover that the deadly wildlife hides a much more surprising reality...

Le capitan is a 1960 French-Italian swashbuckler film directed by André Hunebelle and starring Jean Marais, Bourvil, Elsa Martinelli and Lise Delamare. It is based on a novel by Michel Zévaco.

They are the best friends of the world. Five friends who shared everything: may 68, hippies years, the rock and their love for Bernadette. This Bernadette has left them to become a rock-star, and is back 15 years later for a weekend. Jean-Marie Poire describes with this movie the portrait of a generation with lots of humor served by excelent actors.

For the Olympique de Paris soccer team, this away match scheduled against Caplongue was merely supposed to be one last chore before the end of the professional season. Yet no one could ever have imagined that an unknown rabies-like infection was going to spread like wildfire, turning this small town’s inhabitants into ultra-violent and highly contagious creatures.

Pierre is a clumsy, overly serious math teacher at an all-girls high school. His life is thrown into chaos after encountering a beautiful British actress and the paparazzi that follow her around.

In late summer 1939, the French learned that Adolf Hitler had attacked Poland. On September 3, France entered the war, twenty years after the carnage of World War I. Although France was considered the world’s leading military power, with a vast empire and a powerful ally in the United Kingdom, everyone was overcome with a sense of dread. Yet the fighting would not begin until May 1940 and would end with France’s defeat in June. How did the French people experience those few months—among the most decisive and darkest in the country’s history?

To repay a debt, Marcel must commit a robbery in a large department store. Unfortunately his booty is intercepted by a gang of thugs.

Two members of the French Academy agree to help the attractive young veterinarian Esther investigate the suspicious death of her sister. Esther is convinced her brother-in-law is responsible, but soon it becomes apparent that those responsible are linked to the very highest echelons of power in the Vatican.

In 1965, farmer Maurice Masse sees a UFO in his field, leaving strange marks. As media and crowds swarm the village, Maurice fights to protect his family. But the event unsettles not just his life, but the peace of the whole community.

Vienna in the beginning of the twentieth century. Cavalry Lieutenant Fritz Lobheimer is about to end his affair with Baroness Eggerdorff when he meets the young Christine, the daughter of an opera violinist. Baron Eggerdorff however soon hears of his past misfortune...

Amel and her family learn that their landlord wants to get his apartment back in a few months. While Mouna, her eldest daughter, begins to have visions of Charles Martel, and their request for new social housing drags on, Amel has no choice but to reinvent herself.

Émilie lives in a world of surveillance: her camgirl work; the camera phone lingering on a crush from afar; the headset affording her a drone’s perspective. The same drone that stalks each move she makes, offering inspiration, noting rivals. An unsolicited companion is conspiring with or against her. A financially strapped transplant now living in the Paris suburbs, Émilie is thrust into a high-powered world when she is chosen for a renovation workshop with a prestigious architect. Her classmates come mostly from “filthy rich” backgrounds, like cocky Olivier, who wants Émilie as his conquest. But Émilie has shy eyes only for self-sufficient Mina, whose music builds like a “helicoid.” A drone—unlike any known model—is watching her all along waiting for her next move and paying handily for the privilege.

A former racer returns to the sport through a racing academy, where she meets Will. As they fall for each other, they become rivals competing for the Formula 1 championship, forcing her to choose between love and victory.

The story of how Norma Jeane Mortenson became Marilyn Monroe (1926-62), a lucid path of self-discovery, from anonymity to stardom: the painful birth of a myth.

Pierre, a Parisian engineer, goes up in the Alps for his work. Irresistibly attracted by what surrounds him, he camps out alone high in the mountains and leaves behind his everyday life. Up there he meets Léa, a chef of an alpine restaurant, while mysterious glows glitter in the deep mountains…

This semi-amusing sex (romance) comedy has four separate stories: "The Telephone Call", written by Rodolfo Sonego, directed by Dino Risi. "A Treatise on Eugenics", written by Tullio Pinelli from a story by Luciano Salce and Steno, directed by Luigi Comencini. "The Soup", written by Rodolfo Sonego and Luigi Magni, directed by Franco Rossi. "Monsignor Cupid", written by Leo Benvenuti and Piero de Bernardi from a story by Boccaccio, directed by Mauro Bolognini.

Mr. Hulot is the head designer of the Altra Automotive Co. His latest invention is a newfangled camper car loaded with outrageous extra features. Along with the company's manager and publicity model, Hulot sets out from Paris with the intention of debuting the car at the annual auto show in Amsterdam. The going isn't easy, however, and the group encounters an increasingly bizarre series of hurdles and setbacks en route.

An elderly millionaire manipulates an avant-garde writer and a happily married man.

After the French defeat of summer 1940, Addi Ba, a young Senegalese rifleman escapes and hides in the Vosges. Aided by some villagers, he gets false documents that allow him to live openly.

1865, the American Civil War has just ended. The last remaining members of a now destitute Southern family journey to California. The guilt and scars they carry from the war are deeper and more painful than the loss of their family fortune and home. The war is over, but the battle to survive has just begun, they are in search of a new life, a new fortune, a new world and something else that they do not yet understand, the redemption of their very souls. Written by Joseph Paul Stachura

A young princess is the subject of a tug-of-war among witches, as each struggles to find the suitable antidote to a death sentence inculcated by an evil sister.

The early days of the French Revolution, as seen through the eyes of the ordinary citizens in Marseille and the royal court, including King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

In hellish Casablanca, a car-crash sets ablaze a burning, passionate love story between has-been rocker Larsen and the streetwise amazon Rajae. An unspoken trauma is their common history; rock n' roll their mutual saviour. Larsen's snakeskin-covered guitar and Rajae's liquid gold voice could be heaven, if only everything from his drug-induced visions to her music-buff pimp didn't get in the way. The only hope for their blooming romance is to skip this ferocious town. Is there a way out of this crazy Moroccan underworld with its menagerie of sadistic cops, venomous snakes, metal concerts and shotgun-wielding modern-day Calamity Janes? For these punk Romeo and Juliet, maybe the answer lies in a song - the one they've been writing and dreaming together : Zanka Contact

Paul Exben is a success story – partner in one of Paris's most exclusive law firms, big salary, big house, glamorous wife and two sons straight out of a Gap catalog. But when he finds out that Sarah, his wife, is cheating on him with Greg Kremer, a local photographer, a rush of blood provokes Paul into a fatal error.

In a moment of madness a middle-aged, married and respectable pharmacist kills a young woman who is sun-bathing by a lake. Unable to take in what he has done, he flees from the scene of the crime and behaves as if nothing has happened. Eventually her boyfriend is charged with the crime and, in a strange twist of fate, the killer finds himself serving on the jury.

It's 1790 and British Naval Commander Redway is driven by greed for money and will stop at nothing to get it. His second in command, David Robinson, questions his allegiance when Redway kills his father and takes his brother prisoner. In order to save his brother and avenge his father's death David must join forces with a band of pirates, led by Captain Bernard, hunt down and kill Redway.

Dominican friar Etienne de Bourbon visits a 13th-century French village in search of heretics for the Inquisition. Despite the opposition of the local priest and the indifference of the villagers, he finds a seemingly perfect suspect: a young woman who lives in a forest outside the village and cures people with herbs and folk remedies. In the process, he discovers the cult of the greyhound "Saint" Guinefort, and confronts his own troubled past.

Simone, a cop with conservative ideas, infiltrates a feminist collective. However, her cover is thin. To divert attention and get out of this bad situation, Simone finds nothing better than to randomly accuse a man of having raped her.

A father, a mother and a baby are sitting at a table, on a patio outside. Dad is feeding Baby her lunch, while Mum is serving tea.

A young actress seeking a life away from adult movies moves to Florida insearch of a new identity. Her newfound peace is shattered when local thugsrecognize her.

Henry Roubier, a French promoter, and Enrico Mazzini, an Italian, have signed an agreement guaranteeing them a stranglehold on European highways. While driving on the roads of the south, Roubier takes two young hitchhikers, but an unfortunate swerve the car rushes by Henri and its occupants on the top of a pine tree onto the side of a cliff.

A 12-year-old girl faces a father she hardly remembers after his transition into a woman.

Babou seems to be able to shrug off anything. Real jobs, husbands, responsibilities, who needs them? But when she finds out that her own daughter is too ashamed of her to invite her to her wedding, she decides to make some changes.