Discoveries from France World Cinema

Handsome and rich Spanish gentleman abandons his wife and riches for his love of a young girl of poor stock who taunts and degrades him.

Yuku is a young mouse who lives with her family in the cellar of a castle. Her grandmother passes on the family values by telling her timeless folk tales. Injured in a tussle with a cat, the old mouse is bedridden and she tells her children that she will have to leave them to follow the little blind mole into the Earth’s tunnels. In one of her grandmother’s storybooks, Yuku learns that the flower of the Himalayas can bring her eternal light. She leaves on a journey of discovery to find the flower.

The adventures of an upper-class suburban family abruptly confronted with the younger brother's discovery of his homosexuality, the elder sister's suicide attempt and sadomasochist tendencies, and the intrusion of a very free-spirited maid and her husband. And it all started with the arrival in the family of an innocent looking rat.

Michel, the jovial owner of the only café in a small Normandy town, sees his life turned upside down when his teenage daughter is murdered. The community has his back but soon rumor spreads and Michel is singled out. From the ideal father, he becomes the ideal culprit.

Alice, a perfect wife and mother, lives happily with her husband and child until the day she discovers he is living a double life that has ruined her financially and left her a single mother. Alice fights back and dives into a world beyond anything she has ever known.

A schoolboy Nicholas always worries about something. When he goes on a school skiing trip, all his visions and nightmares take him over.

A quartet of international gay short films, the latest in its popular The Male Gaze collection. These films explore faith and passion. Forgive them, father, for these boys have sinned. Witness how the power of God works in mysterious ways, from sexual tension high up in the Spanish mountains to the castles of medieval France and the gossip-filled side streets of Abidjan in West Africa. Religion can be a man’s prison, but sometimes it can set him free.

In 1887, at a time when duels are in vogue in Paris, Clément Lacaze and Marie-Rose Astié meet. He's a charismatic master of arms; she's a feminist, far ahead of her time. Clément gets caught in a spiral of violence and decides to initiate Marie-Rose in the art of dueling. The two must work together to save face. How far will they go to defend their honor?

The story revolves around 22-year-old Laure, who is trying to find her feet. After performing brilliantly in her literature studies, she enrols as a communications officer in the Naval Fusiliers. She will quickly have to adapt to and assimilate the rules that apply within the institution. But Laure is a determined woman, and she has a thirst for knowledge – still. A thirst to learn to get to know and be comfortable with herself, and to find her place.

In Baghdad the Magnificent reigns Haroun al Plassid, who is the Caliph. There also dwells Iznogoud, who wants to be the Caliph. The irascible Grand Vizier hatches plot after plot to remove his ruler and take his place—melting Djinn, invisibility spell, cursed diamond, voodoo doll… But no amount of cunning or obstinacy can make up for sheer, hilariously bad luck.

The mayor of Lyon, Paul Théraneau, is in a delicate position. After 30 years in politics, he is running out of ideas and is faced with a feeling of existential emptiness. To overcome this, Paul hires a young and brilliant philosopher, Alice Heimann. Then follows a dialogue between two diametrically opposed personalities who will turn their certainties upside down.

Three longtime friends set off on a boat trip with their romantic partners, but inclement weather, jealousy and confessions, will put to test their friendships.

This movie tells the story of a group of right-wing cops have begun carrying out vigilante justice on drug dealers and other crime figures who might otherwise avoid punishment for their misdeeds. Police inspector Grindel (Delon) understands the feelings which motivate these deeds, but does not approve. However, he is not highly motivated to put an end to the group's activities until it begins to appear that they are now attacking fellow cops for reasons which are unclear.

A slice of life of a group of young working class friends in a Northern French village coming to the end of their school years and embarking upon adult life. The film follows the choices and decisions made for their futures.

An executive manager, his wife and his family, at the point when his professional choices are about to overturn all their lives. Philippe Lemesle and his wife are separating, their love irretrievably damaged by pressures of work. A successful executive in industrial conglomerate, Philippe no longer knows how to respond to the contradictory demands of his bosses. Yesterday they wanted a manager, today an enforcer. Now he must decide what his life really means.

A 30 ans, Bruno, rock-star has been, vit toujours aux crochets de sa petite amie. Les temps sont durs... surtout quand une ex ressurgit de nulle part pour lui apprendre qu'il est le père de Nancy, 13 ans, dont il n'a jamais soupçonné l'existence.

1956. Algeria is a French colony. Fernand and Helene are madly in love. Fernand is an activist, fighting for independence alongside the Algerians. Helene is fighting for Fernand’s life. History will irrevocably change the course of their destiny.

Young Marco Polo travels to China to help Kublai Khan fight against rebels, headed by his own son, with a new invention: gunpowder.

Françoise has just been dumped by her husband for a much younger woman. In order to cheer her up, and to celebrate her 60th birthday, sisters Rose and Alice decide to take their mother to a resort on the tropical island of Reunion so they can relax, work on their tans, and have too many margaritas. But when Rose pays a one-night stand, Thierry, to show her mother a good time, their holiday plans start to unravel.

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.

A young man, Lagardère, discovers that a plot is afoot to assassinate the Duke of Nevers. He warns him and flees with his daughter, Aurore. Fifteen years pass. Lagardère has raised Aurore as his own, but her mother seeks her out and has her abducted by her men. With the help of two friends, Lagardère rescues the girl and confronts her kidnappers.

A group of young amateurs participants in chats begin a risky game, attracted by the mysterious personality of a surfer. In one of these adventures, one of them dies. Then begins a nightmare of suspicion between them.

Rouen, Normandy, 1431, during the Hundred Years' War. After being captured by French soldiers from an opposing faction, Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans, is unjustly tried by an ecclesiastical court overseen by her English enemies.

Amidst a period of unprecedented world events, an eighteen-year-old girl’s life is placed on hold. Isolated in her bedroom, she falls under the spell of the mysterious vlogger Patricia Coma. As time carries on, the lines between her dreams, fears, hopes, and reality begin to blur into one another.

When the comedy duo Gus and Andy are forced by their manager to form a trio with a talented actress, their working relationship gets strained.

A young priest speaks out against the Communist regime in Poland and is killed for it.

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.

In a crowded subway train, a woman pushes a man. They argue. Their little joust "barks loudly", but does not lack charm... Later, in the corridors of the station, the two strangers make love awkwardly in the booth of a photo booth. At last, on the surface, they will say goodbye...

Set against the backdrop of the infamous Theatre Grand Guignol the story revolves around iconic actress Paula Maxa - the most famous of the Grand Guignol's leading ladies and the titular Most Assassinated Woman, who was graphically slain on stage multiple times a day.

In the sterile setting of a powerful multinational, a ruthless corporate executive and her ambitious protégée bare their claws in a vicious battle for supremacy.

1920. Jean Rezeau and his elder brother were living happily in their family estate in Brittany, until the death of their grandmother. The return of their mother, a worthy descendant of fairytales' witches, brings an all new atmosphere to their home.

On a night of April 1957, Albertine, a brillant and rebel 19-year-old girl, jumps from the wall of the prison where she’s serving a sentence for a holdup. In her fall, a bone from her ankle breaks: the astragal. She is rescued by Julien, a justice fugitive, and so is born a burning passion between them. He takes her to Paris and hides her. But while he leads his gangster life here and there, the young woman struggles for her freedom and against the wounds inflicted by Julien’s absence, and writes poetry.

Louise meets Nathan, her dreams resurface. It's also the story of her ailing brother, their mother, and the destiny of a leading family of wealthy Italian industrialists. The story of a family falling apart, a world coming to an end and love beginning.

A cop goes up against his lifelong friend, who has become one of the city's biggest drug traffickers.

A French man spies on a lovely younger woman across the way. When he's spotted by the woman shortly after being questioned by the police about a local murder, the man's simple life becomes more complicated.

Austrian actress Romy Schneider (1938) and French actor Alain Delon (1935), once fervent lovers in the early sixties, maintained a close friendship and a certain working relationship after their breakup until her death in 1984: a universal and eternal love.

Ricky is a young Arab Australian whose peaceful suburban life is turned on its head when his sister, Ameena, disappears without trace. In a climate of distrust and xenophobia, she is soon suspected of having joined the ranks of ISIS in Syria. In a ‘post-facts’ world, Ricky no longer knows who to believe, his sense of what’s right or the 24 hour media cycle of spin.

A woman on a train becomes the center of attention when she is mistaken for a spy by opposing factions who are traveling on the same line.

A drunken, self-destructive woman called Betty wanders into a Parisian bar where she meets middle-aged alcoholic Laure. Laure decides to take care of Betty. Recovering in a hotel room, Betty begins to recount to Laure the story of her bourgeois life and her unhappy and unfaithful marriage.

An acid portrait of Italian youth at the time, I DELFINI follows a dreary season of discontent and viciousness in the lives of a thoroughly unpleasant group of mostly rich youngsters in a small Adriatic coast city.

16 years later, Tanguy, now 44, returns to his parents' house with his daughter Zhu under his arm because Meï Lin left him. Disappointed to see their "little one" in this state, Paul and Edith do everything to give him a taste for life, without realizing that by doing so, they braid the rope to hang themselves. Because Tanguy is starting to feel good with his parents.

Henri IV falls in love with the young Charlotte de Montmorency, 40 years his junior. The king decided to marry her off to his nephew, Henri de Condé, so that he could later make her his mistress.

Eddie Carbone, a Brooklyn longshoreman is unhappily married to Beatrice and unconsciously in love with Catherine, the niece that they have raised from childhood. Into his house come two brothers, illegal immigrants, Marco and Rodolpho. Catherine falls in love with Rudolpho; and Eddie, tormented but unable to admit even to himself his quasi-incestuous love, reports the illegal immigrants to the authorities.

Alex Leclerc wanders through the empty corridors of a seaside hotel. He is a regular here, at least for Hughie, the former night watchman who died the day before. Alex is a professional gambler, a high roller. He will have to engage in a game of seduction to win over the successor to his late friend Hughie...

Sabri Lahlali, the assistant principal of a local high school, is ready to do anything to ensure that his son, who is about to take his high school diploma, has the ideal academic record. But he doesn't know how far his enterprise will take him.

Just before wowing international critics and moviegoers with his adventure romp Fanfan la Tulipe, director Christian-Jaque dashed off the lampoonish Barbe-Bleue. Ostensibly the story of the famed wife-killing potentate Bluebeard (Pierre Brasseur), this lighthearted costumer begins as the title character is poised to march down the matrimonial aisle for the eighth time. Barbe-Bleue's newest spouse Aline (Cécile Aubry) is kept in line by her husband's claims of murdering her predecessors. But when Aline opens the famous locked door to the equally famous hidden room, both she and the audience are in for quite a surprise. The frivolous nature of Barbe-Bleue is underlined by its pleasing utilization of the French Gezacolor process.

Geppetto the carpenter carves the object of his hidden desires out of a log: a puppet that will keep him company and will be like a son to him. He will call him Pinocchio. Imagine his surprise when he discovers that the puppet moves, as if by magic, and is gifted with a life on its own.

A far too serious college graduate boy gets hazed by his two cheeky girl cousins, as well as by a beautiful female neighbor, while spending their Summer vacation in a French manor.

An American secret agent is tasked with recovering a nuclear bomb stolen by spies.

Marion faces Paris at night with a feeling of vulnerability linked to the loss of her sister. She crosses paths with Alex. Their encounter will evolve at the rhythm of their wanderings through the city, like a journey through the night.

An intimate portrait, in his own words, of the Indian writer Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses (1988), thirty years after the fatwa uttered by the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini: his youth in multicultural Bombay, his life in England, his many years of forced hiding, his thoughts on President Trump's United States of America.

A young boy named Nicholas is about to become the next Santa Claus, but must first avoid a crisis that's threatening the magic of Christmas before he can succeed in his new role.

The Indigenous Bunong practice agriculture by hand and end up in conflict with Cambodia's lucrative trade in CO2 certificates, losing the forest of whose ownership they have no conception. Now and then, split screen. A visual firework display.

The film shows Catherine Destivelle's trip to Dogon Country, in Mali, where she will make spectacular free solo rock climbing ascents in the sun-warmed cliffs of Bandiagara. Destivelle is accompanied on this trip by a friend climber, Lucien Abbet. A film by Pierre-Antoine Hiroz produced in 1987 by Paradoxe and also featuring Tidjani Koné, Ibrahim Dolo, and the Dogon inhabitants of the Bandiagara Escarpment. The film won the Genziana D'argento for best free climbing film at the Trento Film Festival in 1987.

In 1817, on Bourbon Island (Reunion Island), a compelling narrative unfolds. Following the passing of his mother, the enslaved Furcy stumbles upon a letter of emancipation amidst her belongings – an unexpected key to his indirect liberation. Aided by the support of abolitionist prosecutor Gilbert Boucher, Furcy courageously embarks on a legal crusade against his master, Joseph Lory, in a bid to substantiate his claim to freedom. This legal saga, marked by numerous twists and turns, spans almost three decades. Furcy endures imprisonment and exile in Mauritius for a significant portion of this period. It is only in 1846 that he finally presents his case before the Royal Court of Paris. Furcy’s triumph in the courtroom distinguishes him as one of the rare slaves in French history to achieve legal emancipation several years prior to the definitive abolition of slavery.

1962: events in Algeria. Captain Sainbenin has just taken over the leadership of a newly created fighter commando. His relationship with the hierarchy is strained. To this war of a new type, Sainbenin intends to apply methods of a new kind. Everything is good to find the "rebels": new intelligence system, new interrogation system. When in Algiers a putsch is organized against De Gaulle by 4 of his generals, Sainbenin's men are divided: should they remain faithful to De Gaulle, or take the side of French Algeria against all odds? tragic fate of a handful of uprooted people fighting for a patriotic ideal and sacrificed in the name of this ideal.

N Took the Dice is essentially a reworking of Eden and After made possible by the roll of a dice (scenes from the 1970 film were combined with outtakes and additional footage in an aleatory way). Robbe-Grillet was always interested in music and since he perceived Eden and After to be serial in nature, it only made sense that its sister film would stand in opposition to that.

The upper-class secret agent teaming up accidentally with an easily-corrupted, sly interpreter...

Five lesbian women, five refreshingly different love stories. When Greta meets April it's love at first sight. Helen's love potion bears mixed results. Anxious Aitana is crazy for Cleo. Lost soul Saki is desperate to belong. Meanwhile, Lin just wants to dance.