A look at the rise of anti-Semitism and assaults against Jews in present-day France.

Un été à la Garoupe (2020)
La Garoupe, a beach in Antibes, in 1937. For one summer, the painter and photographer Man Ray films his friends Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar, Paul Eluard and his wife Nusch, as well as Lee Miller. During these few weeks, love, friendship, poetry, photography and painting are still mixed in the carefree and the creativity specific to the artistic movements of the interwar period.

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1896)
A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

Your Mum and Dad (2019)
The film follows Michael Moskowitz’s work with a New York-based therapist named Kirkland Vaughns, one of the few African-American Freudian therapists in the United States, while the director reveals her own family’s devastating trauma.

Forbidden Films (2014)
Between 1933 and 1945 roughly 1200 films were made in Germany, of which 300 were banned by the Allied forces. Today, around 40 films, called "Vorbehaltsfilme", are locked away from the public with an uncertain future. Should they be re-released, destroyed, or continue to be neglected? Verbotene Filme takes a closer look at some of these forbidden films.

Paul Nizon: Der Nagel im Kopf (2020)
The film tells of the radical life-search by the Swiss writer Paul Nizon, born 1929 in Bern, Switzerland, who became what “he was meant to be” in Paris. Now 90-year-old, Paul Nizon grants insights into his life and work in a self-ironic, direct manner. The intimate portrait of a great literary outsider emerges, for whom the risk of life and the risk of writing merge into one and the same work of art.

À Propos De... L'autre Détail (1985)
Documentary edited from testimonies on the torture of people who experienced the war. Some witnesses were tortured by Jean-Marie Le Pen. These testimonies will help defend the newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné in court against Jean-Marie Le Pen for defamation. The film was shown in 1985 during the trial and some witnesses also came to support the newspaper. But the 1963 amnesty law protects the politician, prohibiting the use of images that could harm people who served during the Algerian war.

Faire famille (2023)
What's it like to "make a family" when you're not part of the traditional hetero couple? Can two best buddies living on the same floor become a family? Océan and his best friend Sophie-Marie Larrouy will question their friendship, their desire for children and their ability to commit to each other, going to meet people who have made families "differently" to draw inspiration from them and invent their own model.

St. Louis (2019)
Hamburg, Germany, 1939. Getting a passage aboard the passenger liner St. Louis seems to be the last hope of salvation for more than nine hundred German Jews who, desperate to escape the atrocious persecution to which they are subjected by the Nazi regime, intend to emigrate to Cuba.

Mother of Normandy: The Story of Simone Renaud (2010)
Madame Simone Renaud witnessed the liberation of France on June 6, 1944 from a very unique viewpoint: St. Mere Eglise, the first town liberated during the D-Day invasion. It was here that she and her husband, the mayor of St. Mere Eglise, witnessed so many American soldiers giving their lives to protect freedom and democracy. Their small town became these soldiers' final resting place and Madame Renaud spent a lifetime tending to their graves and corresponding with their loved ones back home. She became a friend, family and touchstone to those whose lives were forever changed on that day.

Tragic Awakening: A New Look at the Oldest Hatred (2024)
“Tragic Awakening: A New Look at the Oldest Hatred,” directed by Canadian-Israeli filmmaker Raphael Shore, interweaves historical analysis with contemporary events through the voices of clerics, historians, sociologists, and cultural commentators, including the late British Chief Rabbi Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, author Yossi Klein Halevi, Israel’s antisemitism envoy Michal Cotler-Wunsh, and journalists Bari Weiss and Douglas Murray. It argues that antisemitism stems not from a perception of Jewish inferiority, but rather from resentment of Jewish excellence and moral leadership.

Lynx (2021)
In the heart of the Jura mountains, a call resounds through the forest. The silhouette of a Eurasian lynx creeps through the trees. A male is looking for its mate. Suddenly a call answers back. It is the beginning of the story of a lynx’s family we will follow over the seasons. While it is rare to come across this private feline, it is exceptional to discover its daily life in the wild.

1974, l'alternance Giscard (2019)
In May 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing became the third President of the Fifth Republic. An alternation of power that did not speak its name opened the doors of power to a reforming president. Abortion, divorce by mutual consent, lowering the age of majority to 18 - in less than two years, the youngest President of the Republic - at the time - carried out reforms with a vengeance, without a united majority in Parliament, before failing in the economic sphere and losing the battle against unemployment. At the age of 90, the former President of the Republic has agreed to look back on these years and gives us a valuable account of his time in power.

The Smuggler and Her Charges (2016)
A captivating and personal detective story that uncovers the truth behind the childhood of Michaël Prazan's father, who escaped from Nazi-occupied France in 1942 thanks to the efforts of a female smuggler with mysterious motivations.

Peter Eisenman: Building Germany's Holocaust Memorial (2009)
This documentary explores the creation of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin as designed by architect Peter Eisenman. Reaction of the German public to the completed memorial is also shown.

Mitterrand, président culturel (2021)
On the occasion of the fourty years anniversary of François Mitterand's election, a look back to the relationship between the President and artists, from admiration to manipulation.

A French Youth (2024)
In the heart of the Camargue region, in the south of France, Jawad and Belka find freedom in their love of Camargue races. For these young Maghrebi men, the event is more than a simple tradition. Facing off with a bull is an opportunity to establish their place in the arena—and in French society. But at what cost?