Self (archive footage)
In May 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing became President of the Republic and wanted to bring about a new era of modernity. One of his first decisions was to break up the ORTF with the creation of three new television channels: TF1, Antenne 2 and FR3. Three new public channels but autonomous and competing. It is a race for the audience which is engaged then, and from now on the channels will make the war! This competition will give birth to a real golden age for television programs, with variety shows in the forefront. The stars of the song are going to invade the living rooms of the French for their biggest pleasure. This unedited documentary tells the story of the metamorphosis of this television of the early 1970s, between freedom of tone, scandals, political intrigues and programs that have become mythical.
Self (archive footage)
Herself
(archive footage)
elle même
Self (archive footage)
Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Drama based on life and stories of one of the most popular Soviet/Russian writers - Sergei Dovlatov.
Self (archive footage)
A behind-the-scenes and in-depth look at the making of John Huston's The Misfits (1961).
Narrator (voice)
Not just another documentary on the French resistance movement, this film focuses on one particular group of underground fighters in France: those from Eastern Europe. Many were Jews and all had fled their native countries before the war broke out. They were among the most staunch and fearless enemies of fascism, as shown here in personal interviews and memoirs of war-time experiences. But the most famous of these immigrants were 23 who were rounded up among several hundred Parisians in 1943, tried for their activities, and executed -- all were immigrants under the leadership of the Armenian poet Manouchian. After their execution, Paris was papered with posters decrying these 23 martyrs as "foreign communists."
Maupassant's mother
The life and times of the famous French writer Guy de Maupassant.
Mme Louise Baron
Edouard Binet, an aimless Frenchman, has been travelling in North Africa for many years, and is sailing to Belgium. En route, he meets Sylvie Baron. He introduces her to Nemrod Lobetoum, a rich Egyptian carrying valuable jewelry, and Sylvie and Nemrod become friends. Their friendship escalates to love, which makes Edouard jealous. Days later, Edouard arrives at a rooming house owned by Mme. Louise Baron, Sylvie's mother, wearing blood-stained clothes. It appears that Nemrod was killed on a train after he arrived in France, but Edouard denies any knowledge of what happened. Sylvie suspects that Edouard is responsible for Nemrod's death, but by now her mother has become Edouard's ally.
Louise Martin
A middle-aged disabled man unknowingly begins a lonely hearts correspondence with his own unmarried sister, who takes care of him. As he writes more and more to her, he begins to fall in love, and she, knowing that it is her brother who is writing, discovers a new, tender side to him. But trouble looms when he asks to meet her in person.
Mamie
In the summer of 1939, 13-year-old Marie goes with her parents to visit her grandparents in a small town near Avignon. Marie discovers her femininity and falls for a young Jewish doctor, but he prefers Eva, Marie's mother.
Judith Therpauve
When her old resistance buddies come to her looking for someone to helm a financially troubled liberal newspaper, Judith (Simone Signoret) is at first reluctant, but for this old hero of the French anti-Nazi resistance, challenges are hard to ignore. She takes on the job, mortgaging her house to keep the paper solvent. When things take a turn for the worse, because of concerted opposition by conservative forces, she is forced to sell the paper, and she regards this as a personal failure.
Narrator (voice)
French essay film focusing on global political turmoil in the 1960s and '70s, particularly the rise of the New Left in France and the development of socialist movements in Latin America.
Madame Rosa
Madame Rosa lives in a sixth-floor walkup in the Pigalle; she's a retired prostitute, Jewish and an Auschwitz survivor, a foster mom to children of other prostitutes. Momo is the oldest and her favorite, an Algerian lad whom she raises as a Muslim. He asks about his parents; she answers evasively. As she ages and takes fewer children, Momo must do more for her; as money is tight, he tries to earn pennies on the street with a puppet. He's a beautiful man-child, and Madame Rosa makes him promise never to sell himself or become a pimp. A film editor, Nadine, befriends him, and his father appears as well. Madame Rosa reaches her last days in fear of hospitals, and Momo must act.
Thérèse Ganay
A tough but honest cop must clear his name after a corrupt colleague implicates him in a murder in this French thriller. Ferrot is a hard-as-nails police detective who is attracted to a beautiful woman named Sylvia. Sylvia, however, is having an affair with Ganay, who happens to be Ferrot's superior on the force; Ganay happens to be married to Therese, who is handicapped. Sylvia is found murdered, and Ferrot is assigned to investigate; Ferrot is convinced that Ganay killed Sylvia because she wanted to end their relationship, but to his dismay, Ferrot discovers that the killer has placed a number of false clues that point the blame toward Ferrot.
Lady Vamos
A disturbed young woman is kept prisoner in a castle by her aunt for her money. The game-keeper, her guardian, tries to rape her but she escapes. In her flight she meets a man also running away, from two killers.
Jeanne
Rose
The body of a young woman is discovered near a farm. The judge, Larcher is in charge and thinks that the farmers have something to do with the murder.
Narrator
Bruno Muel's documentary on the coup in Chile in 1973. Muel, who was part of the famed Medvedkine group, along with Chris Marker and Jean-Luc Godard, among others, captured one of the most powerful portraits of the early days of Dictatorship. Profound solidarity with the socialist cause, Muel and his team showed great courage to mix the official registration of images with those triumphant, clandestine, of the nascent opposition.
la veuve Couderc
The relationship between a middle-aged French widow (Simone Signoret) and a young drifter (Alain Delon) takes a turn when her young niece pays a visit.
Self - Interviewee
Artur London was arrested in 1951 in a Stalinist purge, imprisoned and tortured for two years and forced to confess in the Slansky Trial, one of the last Stalinist "show trials" in Eastern Europe. The documentary explores some of the reasons for the controversy aroused by Costa-Gavras' The Confession, which had been accused of being anti-communist, and it highlights the political importance of filmmaking which, by its nature, is a fiction intended for the general public.
Clémence Bouin
Julien Bouin, a former typographist, and his wife Clemence, who used to perform in a circus, hardly talk to each other in their small house, soon to be demolished. His cat Greffier being the only one he still gives affection to, he becomes the object of Clemence's anger.
Self
Documentary portrait of Henri Langlois, co-founder of the Cinémathèque Française.
Lise (Mme L. / Lise London)
The vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia, knowing he's being watched and followed, is one day arrested and put into solitary confinement by his blackmailers.
Léa
10 years ago, François Nolan and his brother have been betrayed by one of their accomplices after a break-in. During the fight with the police, Francois's brother was killed, and a cop disfigured by François. Now, François is back for revenge. As nobody knows who the traitor was, the former accomplices lose their head. The disfigured cop is also waiting for the right moment to take his revenge on François.
Léone
A man returns to Rouen, after fifteen years in the United States, and feels like a stranger among old friends.
Mathilde
Betrayed by an informant, Philippe Gerbier finds himself trapped in a torturous Nazi prison camp. Though Gerbier escapes to rejoin the Resistance in occupied Marseilles, France, and exacts his revenge on the informant, he must continue a quiet, seemingly endless battle against the Nazis in an atmosphere of tension, paranoia and distrust.
Irina Arkadina
Film adaptation of Anton Chekhov's story of life in rural Russia during the latter part of the 19th century.
Lisa Schindler
A mysterious woman in black moves in with married Manhattan thrill-seekers and helps one trick the other.
Cafe Owner
Near the end of World War II, Gen. Dietrich von Choltitz receives orders to burn down Paris if it becomes clear the Allies are going to invade, or if he cannot maintain control of the city. After much contemplation Choltitz decides to ignore his orders, enraging the Germans and giving hope to various resistance factions that the city will be liberated. Choltitz, along with Swedish diplomat Raoul Nordling, helps a resistance leader organize his forces.
Elsa Fennan
Charles Dobbs is a British secret agent investigating the apparent suicide of Foreign Office official Samuel Fennan. Dobbs suspects that Fennan's wife, Elsa, a survivor of a Nazi Germany extermination camp, might have some clues, but other officials want Dobbs to drop the case. So Dobbs hires a retiring inspector, Mendel, to quietly make inquiries. Dobbs isn't at all sure as there are a number of anomalies that simply can't be explained away. Dobbs is also having trouble at home with his errant wife, whom he very much loves, having frequent affairs. He's also pleased to see an old friend, Dieter Frey, who he recruited after the war. With the assistance of a colleague and a retired policeman, Dobbs tries to piece together just who is the spy and who in fact assassinated Fennan.
Sara Lescault
An angry young man of the theatre, who has written a play that could be a hit, if actress Sara Lescaut agrees to play the lead. Kolinos, however, is determined not to alter one word of his script to make it a more commercial vehicle.
Eliane Darès
Six people travel by train overnight from Marseilles to Paris. When the train arrives at its destination, one of the passengers, a girl, is found dead in a sleeping berth. The police led by Inspector Grazzi investigate the other five passengers, suspecting that one of them was responsible. However, as the investigation is stepped up, the other passengers start turning up dead. It is then up to the last remaining two to solve the case, before they become the next victims.
La Condesa
Passengers on a ship traveling from Mexico to Europe in the 1930s represent society at large in that era. The crew is German, including the ship's Dr. Schumann, who falls in love with one of the passengers, La Condesa. A young American woman, Jenny, is traveling with the man she loves, David. Jenny is fascinated and puzzled by just who some of the other passengers are.
(archive footage)
This insightful documentary features some of the major and most beautiful actresses to grace the silver screen. It shows how the movie industry changed its depiction of sex and actresses' portrayal of sex from the silent movie era to the present. Classic scenes are shown from the silent movie 'True Heart Susie,' starring Lillian Gish, to 'Love Me Tonight' (1932), blending sex and sophistication, starring Jeanette MacDonald (pre-Nelson Eddy), and to Elizabeth Taylor in 'A Place in the Sun' (1951), plus much , much more.
Madame Geneviève
Gerard, a young man from a "good family" dreams of becoming an actor. To do this, he follows everywhere his sister Frédérique who is infatuated with cinéma vérité.
Narrator (English version) (voice)
Candid interviews of ordinary people on the meaning of happiness, an often amorphous and inarticulable notion that evokes more basic and fundamentally egalitarian ideals of self-betterment, prosperity, tolerance, economic opportunity, and freedom.
Thérèse Dutheil
It's the spring of 1944 and Therese is in a hurry to get back to Paris. The trains aren't running from the village where she has gone to visit her father's grave and to fill two suitcases with food. Some British and American planes have been shot down and the Germans want to know where the pilots are hiding. An acquaintance has clearance to drive to Paris with a truckload of goats. After she is in the truck Therese discovers that two British pilots and an American pilot are back there with the goats. She must get the men on a train to Paris and to a safe house there, where there is no room for the American. Can she leave him at the Metro station trying to figure out the map?
Contadina
Two jerks are enlisted in the Italian army during W.W.1 and by pure luck manage to help win an important battle.
Anna
A schoolteacher plagued by alcoholism and his refusal to serve in World War II, Graham Weir inspires contempt in almost everyone around him, including his bitter wife, Anna. When the lovely young Shirley Taylor, one of Weir's students, falls for her unfortunate instructor, he is tempted and flattered but turns down her advances. Taylor's subsequent actions make Weir's life even more complicated.
Jenny de Lacour
Anthology of four love stories that have some historical basis.
Roberte
Milan is an ex Formula One driver and now he lives with his wife Roberte in a small country town. But Milan is not satisfied, so Roberte encourages a love-story between Milan and Helene, a young woman. Milan can't decide and at last the tragedy comes. Then Milan returns to drive in Formula One.
Adua
When a brothel closes because of new laws, four of the prostitutes decide to go into business running a restaurant. They discover they cannot escape their past.
Alice Aisgill
An ambitious young accountant schemes to wed a wealthy factory owner's daughter, despite falling in love with a married older woman.
Elizabeth Proctor
Salem 1692. The young Abigail, seduced and abandoned by John Proctor, accuses John's wife of being a witch in revenge. A series of tragic trials soon befall Salem as fear and suspicion blur the lines of reality.
The tour of the French singer Yves Montand and actress Simone Signoret to the USSR in 1956.
An international anthology about the struggles of female workers around the world.
Djin
Amid a revolution in a South American mining outpost, a band of fugitives - a roguish adventurer, a local hooker, a priest, an aging diamond miner and his deaf-mute daughter - are forced to flee for their lives into the jungle. Starving, exhausted and stripped of their old identities, they wander desperately lured by one deceptive promise of salvation after another.
Nicole Horner
The cruel and abusive headmaster of a boarding school, Michel Delassalle, is murdered by an unlikely duo -- his meek wife and the mistress he brazenly flaunts. The women become increasingly unhinged by a series of odd occurrences after Delassalle's corpse mysteriously disappears.
Thérèse Raquin
Star-crossed lovers Thérèse (Simone Signoret) and Laurent (Raf Vallone) think they've gotten away with murder after Thérèse's weakling husband "falls" from a speeding train. But when forced to contend with a blackmailer's demands and the mute accusations of Thérèse's mother-in-law (French stage and screen diva Sylvie, in a scene stealing performance), it's only a matter of time before the law, their passion or blind chance trips them up.
Marie
Ex-convict Georges Manda returns to the free world determined to go straight and takes a steady job as a carpenter. Unable to completely shake his connections with the underground, he meets with a former prison mate, older gangster Félix Leca, who introduces him to his mistress, the sweet but guarded Marie "Casque d'Or". Marie and Georges fall into a passionate relationship, driving Félix to do everything in his power to ruin the couple.
Isabelle Leritz
A few years ago, Isabelle Leritz, a famous pianist, suffered a fit of madness, in the middle of a concert. Now recovered, she fell in love with Jacques whom she plans to marry. She does not know that he is having an affair with Caroline, his sister, director of a fashion house.
Une journaliste au journal (uncredited)
A woman in Paris hires a taxi driver to locate her ex-lover, father to her newborn child, who left her without leaving an address.
Denise Vernon
An American is on the run in the streets and back alleys of France.
Denise Vernon
Manhunt in Paris and as far as Belgium to catch an American gangster escaped from a police van.
Léocadie, la prostitutée
An all-knowing interlocutor guides us through a series of affairs in Vienna, 1900. A soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening. Later he has an affair with a young lady, who becomes a maid and does similarly with the young man of the house. The young man seduces a married woman. On and on, spinning on the gay carousel of life.
Yvonne
A sailor on leave meets a beautiful girl on the ski slopes of Switzerland.
Dora
The life of a weak-willed man is thrust into a downward spiral by the scheming of his manipulative girlfriend and her mother.
Anne-Marie / Marianne
Stage actress Marianne has decided to give up her career to marry wealthy nobleman Marquis Antoine de Fontaines. As a wedding present, Antoine gives his future wife a precious diamond necklace, which is coveted by a gang of crooks. Jean, one of them, is given the mission to approach Marianne and steal the necklace from her. The only trouble is that when he meets her, she recognizes him as the man she once loved.
Dédée, une entraîneuse soutenue par Marco
Dedee is a prostitute, working in Monsieur Rene's night club on Antwerp's harbour. The porter is Marco, her pimp. Dedee is not happy, until she meets Francesco, an italian sailorman. They fall in love and Dedee begins to dream about an escape of her daily dullness.
Michèle Denis
A disparate group of volunteers are trained as saboteurs and parachuted into Belgium to blow up an office containing important Nazi records and to rescue a prominent S.O.E. agent, who is being interrogated by the Germans for vital information.
Hélène
The invincible bandit faces his daughter, courageous and honest, who wants to end his criminal activities. With a young journalist, her fiancé, she discovers his hideout.
Gisèle
Madame Rose runs a seedy hotel in a suburb of Paris. Strong-minded but without the least moral scruple, she once killed her husband whose honesty was a hindrance to her business. Under a suspended sentence, she now indulges in smuggling. One day, Victor, one of her former accomplices hounded by the police, finds sanctuary with her. During a drinking spree, he has the bad idea to entrust to her a suitcase filled with bank notes, a loot with which Victor hopes to rebuild his life in South America. But Rose, lured by temptation, betrays Victor, who is arrested by the police. However, he manages to escape with only one thing in mind, to take revenge on Rose...
Lily, la cabaretière
A lieutenant, at the head of a commando ready to land in France, finds among his men a maquisard who had tried to kill him in the past.
Annette
Diavalo is the popular hero of French serials circa 1912. Diana is an actress who falls in love with Diavalo. Diavalo is forced to wear a series of disguises to elude the police so he can attend a Gala for the President.
Woman (uncredited)
Nicole tries to seduce a young man who lead a bohemian life in an untidy flat with his three pals.
In his will, the late Jérôme Armandy has expressed the wish to have all the surviving members of his family summoned to the Château de l'Etang, in Provence. Firmin, Jérôme's servant, asks Claude, a Montmartre artist, to organize the reunion, to find the sum of 17 million francs which is hidden there (as a child he had been told by Armandy where the hiding place was) and to divide the amount between the different heirs. But a series of odd facts occur: Claude is knocked unconscious as he is busy opening the hiding place door; one of the heirs gets killed; and even more astounding, the dead man reappears and... asks his money back!
La danseuse à la taverne
A devoted switchboard operator is the village guardian angel.
Liliane Moraccini
The belated and revolting passion of a famous surgeon for a young orphan whom he once took in. He goes so far as to dishonor her to prevent her marriage to a young man she loves, whom she will however end up marrying. The young girl herself is not without reproach; she has missed a mother's love: in this ordeal, she has no sense of feminine dignity.
Une étudiante (uncredited)
A young sculptor presides over the destinies of a student club where a miserable young girl ends up one evening. The treasurer of the association falls in love with the young girl who returns the favor. The war. The sculptor comes back blind. Out of gratitude, the young girl marries him and restores his confidence in his talent; out of discretion, the treasurer steps aside.
Gypsy (uncredited)
A bungling thief is threatened by one target with blackmail, unless the thief will kill his own cousin, a wealthy eccentric who is considered the village idiot.
A young man comes back to his hometown to be confronted with a bourgeois obnoxious family who has always despised his -now dead - parents because they were music hall artists, "entertainers". But because he's the sole legatee of an uncle's fortune, his relatives become friendly with him.. at least for a while.
A kind and generous village noble, specializing in good works, actually leads a double existence and carries out dishonest activities.
Extra (uncredited)
At the end of the 15th century, two traveling minstrels Gilles and Dominique come to the castle of Baron Hugues. Gilles charms Anne, Hugues' daughter, while Dominique charms both Hugues and Anne's fiance. Gilles and Dominique are not really in love: they were sent by the Devil to test desperate people. But Anne is so pure that Gilles is caught in his own trap... How will they fight against the Devil?
Rosine, who spends her time as a model, has to deal with the advances of a disreputable young man.
Une employée de maison de couture
As her neighbor Rémi Courmont has told her off for making his ears bleed with Ravel's Bolero, a music piece she plays at full volume all the time, Anne-Marie decides to get even with him. She sets up a hoax with the complicity of her friend Catherine, who agrees to post as Remi's mistress to embarrass him. Just then, Niquette, Rémi's real lover, resurfaces.