A lucid, sincere and intricate political film, it demonstrates how French neocolonialism exploits migrant labor and exerts a cultural imperialism over their minds.
Social & External
The people behind it
Armand Abplanalp
Jean Berger
Claude Debord
Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.
Lorna is a young Albanian woman in a marriage of convenience with Claudy, a heroin addict. Just as Lorna is about to be granted Belgian citizenship, Claudy finds the strength to detox; this presents a problem not only for Lorna, but for the criminal who brokered the deal.
Years have passed since the Three Musketeers, Aramis, Athos and Porthos, have fought together with their friend, D'Artagnan. But with the tyrannical King Louis using his power to wreak havoc in the kingdom while his twin brother, Philippe, remains imprisoned, the Musketeers reunite to abduct Louis and replace him with Philippe.
Two teenagers, both newcomers to London, forge an unlikely friendship over the course of a hot summer. Tomo is a runaway from Nottingham; Marek lives in the district of Somers Town, between King's Cross and Euston stations, where his dad is working on a new rail link.
Four people from an Arab generation roaming over the ruins of ideologies, causes and virtues of their predecessors. It portrays their intellectual and emotional nonchalance about what is happening around them in their daily lives and relationships. In a house whose architecture is a sixties' experiment in mixing modern and Islamic architecture, a stone and concrete cube suspended over a rocky shore bashed by the waves of the Mediterranean, by famed Iraqi architect Refaat Chaderji, we spend a night with four characters whose non-stop conversations and peculiar actions reflect the void and chaos they are living in.
Lisa and Julien are married and lead a happy uneventful life with their son Oscar. But their life radically changes one morning, when the police comes to arrest Lisa on murder charges. She's sentenced to 20 years of prison. Convinced of his wife's innocence, Julien decides to act. How far will he be willing to go for her?
In the south of France, in a vast plain region called the Camargue, lives White Mane, a magnificent stallion and the leader of a herd of wild horses too proud to let themselves be broken by humans. Only Folco, a young fisherman, manages to tame him. A strong friendship grows between the boy and the horse, as the two go looking for the freedom that the world of men won’t allow them.
Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.
From the mean streets of the Belleville district of Paris to the dazzling limelight of New York's most famous concert halls, Edith Piaf's life was a constant battle to sing and survive, to live and love. Raised in her grandmother's brothel, Piaf was discovered in 1935 by nightclub owner Louis Leplee, who persuaded her to sing despite her extreme nervousness. Piaf became one of France's immortal icons, her voice one of the indelible signatures of the 20th century.
An exploration of love and loss in Paris.
Omar decides to emigrate to America as his 30th birthday approaches, but first he wants to get revenge on the people who have gotten in his way.
A 19-year-old searches for her twin brother after he runs away from home, following a fight with their father.
A group of teenagers living in a housing project in the outskirts of Paris rehearse a scene from Marivaux's play of the same name. Krimo is determined not to take part, but after developing feelings for Lydia, he quickly assumes the main role and love interest in the play.
In the 1990s, an immigrant single mother raises her teenage son in the Canadian suburbs, determined to provide a better life for him than the one she left behind in South Korea.
Reluctantly, a sulky adolescent returns to her parents' house for yet another boring summer vacation, dabbling in desire and the art of desirability, eventually mixing reality with vision, caged fantasies with the fierce female sexuality.
Kamel Helmy is a famous writer, in the late 1940s, living in Cairo, in the famous Imobilia building, after the death of his wife and the departure of his children from home. He suffers from loneliness and schizophrenia. One day he calls a girl named Samah who had befriended Facebook in an attempt to ease his isolation.
At the start of World War I, Paul Baumer is a young German patriot, eager to fight. Indoctrinated with propaganda at school, he and his friends eagerly sign up for the army soon after graduation. But when the horrors of war soon become too much to bear, and as his friends die or become gravely wounded, Paul questions the sanity of fighting over a few hundreds yards of war-torn countryside.
Roro, a foreign worker in Swedish parks, loves his girlfriend but is about to marry another girl to prevent her from being sent back to Lebanon. Meanwhile, Roro's best friend, Måns, has serious problems getting an erection.
Harvard graduate James Averill serves as the sheriff of prosperous Jackson County, Wyoming, standing at the center of a conflict between impoverished immigrants and affluent cattle farmers. Politically connected ranchers enlist mercenary Nathan Champion—who is also vying for the affections of local madam Ella Watson—to combat the immigrant uprising. As tensions escalate, both Averill and Champion start to question their decisions.
Eager to find a better life abroad, a Senegalese woman becomes a mere governess to a family in southern France, suffering from discrimination and marginalization.
An inexperienced young actress is invited to play a role in a film based on Dostoyevsky's 'The Possessed'. The film director, a Czech immigrant in Paris, takes over her life, and in a short time she is unable to draw the line between acting and reality. She winds up playing a real-life role posing as the dead wife of another Czech immigrant, who is manipulated by the filmmaker into commiting a political assassination.
A series of events unfold like a chain reaction, all stemming from a minor event that brings the film's five characters together. Set in Paris, France, Anne is an actress whose boyfriend Georges photographs the war in Kosovo. Georges' brother, Jean, is looking for the entry code to Georges' apartment. These characters' lives interconnect with a Romanian immigrant and a deaf teacher.
Michel takes up pickpocketing on a lark and is arrested soon after. His mother dies shortly after his release, and despite the objections of his only friend, Jacques, and his mother's neighbor Jeanne, Michel teams up with a couple of petty thieves in order to improve his craft. With a police inspector keeping an eye on him, Michel also tries to get a straight job, but the temptation to steal is hard to resist.
As he pedals through the streets of Paris to deliver meals, Souleymane recounts his story. In two days, he has to go through his asylum application interview, the key to obtaining papers, but Souleymane is not ready.
1759, Mauritius Island, Indian Ocean. The island is controlled by French settlers and the deported slave population live in fear while toiling in the sugar cane plantations. Unlike her disillusioned father Massamba, 16-year-old Mati refuses to keep her head down and accept her fate.
Sophie, a quiet and shy maid working for an upper-class French family, finds a friend in the energetic and uncompromising postmaster Jeanne, who encourages her to stand up against her bourgeois employers.
By a little bay near Marseille lies a picturesque villa owned by an old man. His three children have gathered by his side for his last days. It’s time for them to weigh up what they have inherited of their father’s ideals and the community spirit he created in this magical place. The arrival, at a nearby cove, of a group of boat people will throw these moments of reflection into turmoil.
At the end of WWII, Jimmy Picard, a Native American Blackfoot who fought in France, suffers from unexplainable symptoms and is admitted to a military hospital. When doctors suspect schizophrenia, an eccentric psychoanalyst takes up the case and starts a conversation with the veteran.
Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.
Daniel lives with his grandmother and, after a year of high school, goes to live with his mother in the south of France; a harsher environment which rapidly changes his perception of friends, work, and women.
Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.
Like a Candide dreaming of Eldorado, Jallel lands in France, hoping to try his luck. From encounter to encounter, hostel to social welfare group, Jallel will make his way through a Paris of outcasts. Although failing to achieve his hopes, he discovers and shares in the solidarity felt by the destitute.
Psychological drama of the compelling relationship between a young French engineer and the girl he takes into his home after his wife has left him with their baby son.
On her way to visit her childhood home in a colonial outpost in Northern Cameroon, a young French woman recalls her childhood, her memories concentrating on her family's houseboy.
Set in a magnificent villa near a sun-drenched St. Tropez, lovers Jean-Paul and Marianne are spending a happy, lazy summer holiday. Their only concern is to gratify their mutual passion - until the day when Marianne invites her former lover and his beautiful teenage daughter to spend a few days with them. From the first moment, a certain uneasiness and tension begin to develop between the four, which soon escalates in a dangerous love-game.
Odyssey Saône, a young Wallisian of Caledonian origin, leaves everything behind to try his luck in France as a rugby player. Soane is thirsty for freedom, fighting for recognition that it lacks.
A young Parisian must make major decisions about pregnancy, a job and her boyfriend.
On election night in 1981, celebrations spill out onto the street and there is an air of hope and change throughout Paris. But for Elisabeth, her marriage is coming to an end and she will now have to support herself and her two teenage children. She finds work at a late-night radio show and encounters a troubled teenager named Talulah whom she invites into her home.
Aissa, a young officer of Algerian origin, tragically loses his life during a fresher initiation ritual at the prestigious French military academy of Saint-Cyr. As the death tears through his family, controversy arises over Aissa’s funeral plans when the Army refuses to take responsibility. Ismael, his older, rebellious brother, tries to keep the family united as they fight to win justice for Aissa.
