Manuel Vallade

From a country famous all over the world as the birthplace of cinema, Impressionism and the humble pain au chocolat, comes four award-winning films about gay life and growing up. Much like their sought after paintings and pastry treats, these delights prove that when it comes to finesse and flavour in filmmaking - you can't beat the French. The short films are: Falling [Tomber] (2018); The Return [Le retour] (2014); Footing (2012); The Swimming Trunks [Le maillot de bain] (2013).

An overstressed American businessman and a French chambermaid make a connection at an airport hotel in Paris.

One winter morning, a father and his son go for a jog. Along the way, we understand that a gap has grown between Marco, a Parisian who has come to spend a few days in the countryside, and Jean-Claude, a retired policeman who doesn't talk much. Their love is present, but barriers and modesty hold them back from expressing it.

Julie Bataille is fed up with student jobs. At 23, with a 5-years university degree, she wants to work for real. She meets Ben by chance at a job interview. He's a guy who chose to live by the day, getting by with whatever crosses his path and small-time trafficking. Ben asks her to come and spend the summer with him in the South. Julie declines. Then one day, on an impulse, she leaves everything behind and joins him.

It is a mild winter and Martin has just settled into the isolated house that was his father's. One night, at the edge of the woods, a strange man called Haruki appears before him. He invites Martin to lose himself in the forest in order to encounter a stranger. The stranger comes in the form of Yoshido, a peculiar Japanese filmmaker, who, assisted by Mathilde, is preparing to shoot a film based on Haruki's unfinished novel La Vie lointaine.

During the Christmas Eve that he spends every year with his family, Antoine, a young provincial of twenty years, is caught between the desire to find the young man he loves and his family duty.