A look at the rise of anti-Semitism and assaults against Jews in present-day France.
Bertrand's Farm (2024)
1972 in Haute-Savoie (France) : the Bertrand's farm, with a hundred dairy cows owned by three bachelor brothers, is filmed for the first time. In 1997, they were the subject of Gilles Perret's first movie, as they let their farm to their nephew Patrick and his wife Hélène. Nowadays, 25 years later, Gilles Perret take another look at this farm, managed by Hélène who will step down. Through their words, an intimate, social and economic history of the rural world.
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.
Paris 1900 (2019)
In 1900, the eyes of the whole world are on Paris. The World's Fair welcomed 50 million amazed visitors, and the city celebrated itself in a glamorous era. This period went down in history as the "Belle Époque." Elaborately restored and colorized historical photographs bring to life the exciting life in Paris between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of World War I in 1914. Bicycles, cars, airplanes, moving pictures, newly founded film studios, revolutionary composers and painters, avant-garde ballet performances, fashion houses, summer resorts on the Atlantic coast – life was intoxicating. People celebrate in the variety shows, cabarets, and revue theaters of Paris. Moulin Rouge, Folies Bergères, Bal Tabarin—in Paris, the nights are long and life is too short to sleep through. It is a dance on the volcano, given the political developments in the world.
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.
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.
Dissolution, histoire d'un séisme politique (2024)
Misunderstood by the French, Emmanuel Macron’s dissolution of the National Assembly on June 9, 2024, led to an unprecedented political deadlock. This documentary examines whether he miscalculated, why he took such a risk, and whether this signals a deeper institutional crisis in the Fifth Republic.
School for Danger (1947)
Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) provides trained agents, arms and other assistance to the European resistance groups fighting against Hitler. British agents, Captain Harry Rée DSO, OBE, Croix De Guerre, Médaille de la Résistance, aka "Felix", and Jacqueline Nearne, MBE, aka "Cat", recreate some of their adventures in France.
Mitterrand et la télé (2021)
May 10th, 1981. François Mitterrand is elected President of the Republic. The “soviet tanks” supposedly coming upon the Champs-Élysées dressed in red, feared by some, did not march. Serge Moati takes a personal look at this episode, focusing on the relationship the president had with television, that he witnessed and played a role in.
Writer of O (2005)
Published in Paris in 1954, Story of O was an immediate bestseller and literary scandal: an elegantly written S&M fantasy that had all the hallmarks of being an autobiographical account by the pseudonymous Pauline Réage. In 1994 Dominique Aury, a mild-mannered, dowdy editor for France’s prestigious Gallimard press, revealed her authorship. Pola Rapaport explores Aury's inspiration, recreating the world of '50s literary Paris and setting it against dramatic sequences that bring the infamous book to life. The author as well as various French intellectuals expound on the thorny relationship between sexuality and power, submission and freedom, liberation and non-being.
French Lessons (NaN)
Bienvenue en…. Los Angeles! Film executive Kyle and filmmaker Arran rendez-vous for a tête à tête in this crème de la crème of Cinéma Verité.
La cravate (2020)
Bastien is twenty years old and has been an activist for five years in the main extreme right party. When the presidential campaign begins, he's invited by his superior to commit even further. Initiated into the art of decking himself out like a politician, he starts to dream of a career, but old demons surge forth...
Napoleon (2000)
In David Grubin's NAPOLEON watch Napoleon's rise from obscurity to victories that made him a hero to the French people and convinced him he was destined for greatness. Learn of his love for Josephine Beauharnais, and his rise to Emperor. Witness his extraordinary achievements and ultimately his fall, his final battles, his exile to Elba, and his defeat at Waterloo. For nearly two decades he strode the world stage like a colossus -- loved and despised, venerated and feared. From his birth on the rugged island of Corsica to his final exile on the godforsaken island of St. Helena, NAPOLEON brings this extraordinary figure to life.
Michel Foucault par lui-même (2003)
A voyage to the center of the thought of Michel Foucault (1926-1984), a tireless explorer of the margins, a brilliant and atypical thinker, through excerpts from his books and lectures, and the use of images that resonate with them.
A Year in Burgundy (2013)
This documentary follows seven wine-making families in the Burgundy region of France, delving into the cultural and creative process of making wine. You'll never look at wine the same way again.
Maison du Bonheur (2018)
When asked to make a documentary about her friend’s mother—a Parisian astrologer named Juliane—the filmmaker sets off for Montmartre with a Bolex to craft a portrait of an infectiously exuberant personality and the pre-war apartment she’s called home for 50 years.
The Phoney War (2019)
September 3rd, 1939. Britain and France declare war on Nazi Germany, only two days after the Wehrmacht invades Poland. This day, the sad date when the fate of the world changed forever, the Phoney War began: eight months of uncertainty, preparations, evacuations and skirmishes.