Françoise Lebrun

Marc, a bipolar and paranoid filmmaker, cannot tolerate seeing his current project picked apart by his producers. The clips he’s been able to sneak a look at lead him to fear the worst. With his editor as an accomplice, he manages to spirit away the rushes to his aunt’s place in the Cévennes, to finish the film as he envisions it. Instead, its completion is constantly postponed, as he creates endless diversions and impasses, which alternate between the comic and the downright disturbing.

The French-Italian border at the Montgenèvre pass. Daytime reality: tourism, capital invested to make the mountain profitable. At night: the fragile destiny of more than ten thousand men, women and children who, in four years, risked their lives to cross the border.

Two septuagenarians return to a small town in the Dordogne. Every step they take brings them closer to the event that changed their lives sixty years earlier.

Arnaud, a student remaining alone in Paris during the summer, is obsessed with the wall where the names of the Parisian soldiers who died in the 1914 war are engraved. He finds himself confronted by one of these soldiers, who invites him to step out of time and to bring comfort to his loved ones.

"Drinking, dancing and... killing me. It's the new life my neighbour Jose has decided to live. What better way to escape boredom than coming to kill me every thursday? His wife, Lucie, prefers to go to a shrink. To each their own therapy.

Lui, a struggling author with a heart condition, and his wife Elle, a retired psychiatrist, find their idyllic life shattered when Elle begins to succumb to the effects of dementia.

Frédéric and Suzanne bought their first VHS camera in 1989. The camera becomes a witness to their everyday life, their family time, and vacations with friends. A few years later, their son Tim is born. As their relationship slowly falls apart, Suzanne embarks on a desperate battle to fight forgetting by filming her loved ones.

While he loses his clandestine work, and because he believes that Maroussia and him will no longer be able to love each other as well, Frank leaves to earn as much as she: twelve thousand, just what it takes to have a year before them. No more no less.

Alice lives a normal, happy life as a mom, until her whole world is turned upside down: Thomas, the man of her life and father of her child, is suspected of being Antoine Durieux-Jelosse, the infamous assassin who vanished fifteen years ago after murdering his entire family. Years have passed, but Police Chief Sophie Lancelle has never given up her relentless search for the man who committed that unthinkable crime. She is determined to prove, come what may, that Thomas is that long-lost man on everyone's wanted list.

Women and men are lost in their thoughts at random hours of the day and streets of the city. From this sudden intimacy, the murmurs of their little inner voice let us hear the anxieties of love.

Martin, in a last ditch hope, comes to meet Léa in Paris. They are both twenty-five and shared their first love story together. They are both now striving to mature.

Gina, an American flight attendant, falls in with a Parisian bartender on a layover only to find herself tangled in a web of deception, delusion and unrequited amour fou.

Still pining for his ex-boyfriend, Géraud has come to a French seaside town to present his new experimental film, but the only person keen on seeing it is the cinema's underage projectionist who becomes smitten with the handsome director.

In 1852, the mountain village in Provence where Violette lives is brutally deprived of all its men after the repression of the republicans ordered by Napoleon III. Women spend months in total isolation, desperate to see their men again. In this situation, they make an oath in case a man arrives in the village.

An elderly woman discovers an adolescent wild boar on her doorstep and decides to adopt the beast as her last -- and most beloved -- child.

Jake and Mati are two outsiders in the northerly Portuguese city of Porto who once experienced a brief connection. A mystery remains about the moments they shared, and in searching through memories, they relive the depths of a night uninhibited by the consequences of time.

A poor miller gets tricked by the Devil and accidentally sells his daughter for a bit of gold. But Satan can't take her because she's too pure and has wept on her hands. So Satan orders the miller to cut her hands off. It's the beginning of the young girl's journey towards freedom.

Laurent is seeking a path in life after living his childhood and teenage years in laziness. He has a conflictual relationship with Rodolphe, his father, and both are too emotional to express their mutual affection. Despite the women of his life hanging around him , Rodolphe has but one obsession: meeting Marguerite again, the first love of his life.

Elisa, on a verge of divorce, leaves Paris with her son Noe to settle in her hometown of Dunkerque to find the biological mother who gave her up for adoption 30 years before.

Paul is preparing to leave Tajikistan, while thinking back on his adolescent years. His childhood, his mother's madness, the parties, the trip to the USSR where he lost his virginity, the friend who betrayed him and the love of his life.

At the twilight of their lives, Alice and Jean would have been lovers, parents and grandparents. But if this cycle ends peacefully for Alice, Jean, for his part, experiences the slow loss of his physical and mental means.

In September 2011 writer Michel Houellebecq briefly disappeared off the face of the earth. Wild rumours began circulating on the Internet that he’d been abducted by Al-Qaeda or aliens from outer space. Some Twitter users even expressed relief that the controversial author was suddenly no longer around. This film now reveals what really happened: Three tough guys variously with impressive hairstyles and bodybuilder physiques carried off the star intellectual, taking him out of the daily stress of dodging autograph hunters and having his flat renovated and bringing him to a beautiful rural underdog idyll, full of dog grooming, bodybuilding demonstrations, junk cars and Polish sausages. But who was to pay the ransom?

Two Parisian high school students murder a woman they chose as a victim from a chance encounter.

Nouk and Samuel love each other, but they are young and possessive and awkward. One day, Nouk abruptly loses Samuel, who finds himself in limbo.

At the end of June in Paris: Mireille accompanies his friend Thomas, a solitary and restless being, during a walk to Père Lachaise. Thomas is very agitated, worried. He confides to Mireille that he wishes to be cremated in the event of death. In September: after a period of holidays, Mireille returns at her home. She and his friends do not any more manage to contact Thomas. After investigation, Mireille learns that Thomas died in August, only. As he has no family his body was interred in the square of the needy of the new cemetery of Thiais. Mireille wants to honor the last wills of his friend, but the law is strict: to dig up the body and cremate it, the services of the city hall have to have the signature of a member of Thomas's family. Mireille learns that Thomas had a younger brother, Melchior. But But the young man, marginalized, abandoned for years by his older brother, refuses to sign the licence to dig up.

Documentary about the the film critic and filmmaker Jean-Claude Biette.

The French Trilogy showcases a series of 62 photographs taken by Philippe Terrier-Hermann with 25 actors in 6 French regions echoing his previous project, The American Tetralogy. Questioning the relationship between cinema, landscapes and representations, this project features a song by Edward Barrow and was visible in public space in France during the summer of 2013, through a distribution system borrowing from advertising strategies.

Suzanne Simonin describes her life of suffering in letters. As a young woman she is sent to a convent against her will. Since her parents cannot afford the dowry required for a marriage befitting her rank they decide she must instead become a nun. Although a kind and understanding Mother Superior helps her to learn the convent’s daily routine, Suzanne’s desire for freedom remains unabated. When the Mother Superior dies, Suzanne finds herself faced with reprisals, humiliation and harassment at the hands of the new Abbess and the other Sisters. For many years, Suzanne is subjected to bigotry and religious fanaticism. (Berlinale.de)

In Greece to scatter his father's ashes, Isaac hears of a curse that hangs over the head of his family. Dismissing the idea, his trip begins to unveil dark truths that forced his father to flee years ago.

A woman wakes up in a river. Wounded and without memory, then races to elude mysterious followers and recover from amnesia.

Françoise Lebrun pens a love letter to all things English.

“I am a woman who does not know where she is going, but who, always, looks for beauty. As long as she does not flee me. Moritz, your beauty fled me. But I caught it and I carry it in me.”

Mathieu, a piano virtuoso, goes home to help his brother Paul to take care of their sick mother. Paul is into reenacting old battles, dressing up and getting into character, even dueling if necessary. Mathieu gets involved in this world and play becomes real.

Julia Child and Julie Powell – both of whom wrote memoirs – find their lives intertwined. Though separated by time and space, both women are at loose ends... until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.

Four women, all journalists for the French daily "Libération", decide to have, over the course of a week-end, an experience with a male prostitute.

The comedienne Françoise Lebrun regularly comes to the Maniquerville gerontology center to read Proust to the residents. It is an opportunity for them to discuss together the memory of lost time. A strong bond develops between Françoise and Clara, the center’s host.

Depuis peu Eric Vincent, trentenaire sans histoire, a un fort sentiment de malaise. Est-ce la peur d'avoir un enfant ou celle de voir brutalement resurgir le fantôme d'un père qu'il n'a jamais connu ? Un matin, un inconnu l'appelle pour lui proposer de récupérer les cendres de son père. D'abord réticent, il finit par accepter et se retrouve plongé au coeur d'une machination infernale.

The true story of Elle France editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, in 1995 at the age of 43, suffered a stroke that paralyzed his entire body, except his left eye. Using that eye to blink out his memoir, Bauby eloquently described the aspects of his interior world, from the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body to his imagined stories from lands he'd only visited in his mind.

A filmmaker and his crew try to enter the passionate world of Port-Royal and of Jansenism. Another Age of Louis XIV comes to life, the age of Pascal, Racine and of the “Friends of Truth”. The film itself comes up against the unanswerable question of grace.

The parallel fates of a few inhabitants of a strange planet : the world of Internet gay encounters...

The parallel fates of a few inhabitants of a strange planet : the world of Internet gay encounters...

French independent director Paul Vecchiali playfully bites the hand that periodically feeds him (and many of the nation's other creative filmmakers) in this dark comedy. Writer and director Vecchiali stars as a moviemaker named Paul Vecchiali, who is trying to complete his latest project, a dramatic love story about a young couple whose relationship is complicated by the man's addiction to drugs. Short on funds, Vecchiali approaches the National Cinema Center, who offer loans and grants to independent filmmakers whom they believe are deserving. The NCC is less than impressed with Vecchiali's latest script, and they turn him down, just as they have done a number of times in the past. Angry and determined that the NCC will never break the spirit of another director, Vecchiali and his crew block out a plan to assassinate the nine members of the funding board, though the press and public seem more bemused than outraged by the sudden rash of killings.

When her husband dies, Geneviève loses her bearings. She runs away from her loved ones. But in the trunk of his car a clandestine man hid. He is Kurdish, his name is Khader and understands that she must drive him to England.

Wanting to prove to his wife that he is cured after his brief stay in a psychiatric hospital, John insists on giving her a microwave oven.

Ivan's and Serge's occupation is to enter dance competitions where they meet each time new female partners; a wounded gangster who's just burglarized a bank ,forces them to drive him at gunpoint.

Ángel Díaz’s documentary The Lost Sorrows of Jean Eustache, concentrates on Eustache as cinematic thinker and archivist of his own life. Actors read texts written by Eustache, including the following reflection: “The role of the author in cinema should be one of non-intervention.” This sentence reminds us that he belongs to the greatest of film traditions (he cites Griffith, Renoir, Dreyer, and Lang as his models), the one that sees cinema as a matter of placing the camera in front of reality and capturing it ardently, precisely, and without tricks.

Michel and Juliette have just broken up over Michel's affair with the much younger Romance. Alice and Nicolas are still together, but maybe this is because Nicolas does not know of Alice's affair with handsome sports photographer Gaspard. This sly sex comedy, the sophomore effort of Belgian filmmaker Lucas Belvaux, follows the covert sexual misadventures of the troubled foursome.

Paul Vecchiali’s short ode to self-immolation, made in cahoots with the French Federation of Cremation. Didactic and semi-documentary, but, like another dust story, Franju’s Les Poussières, always personal. A film about the body, parents, memory and love after death. With Vecchiali and Françoise Lebrun.

On Paul's initiative, Françoise and Paul met after a long separation, on the pretext to search in commun for a lost memory, a song. It soons appears that Paul's objective is to win her back.

On Paul's initiative, Françoise and Paul met after a long separation, on the pretext to search in commun for a lost memory, a song. It soons appears that Paul's objective is to win her back.

A woman returns after twenty years to Toulon where her husband, who collaborated with the nazis, was murdered. Her motives are unclear.

A woman returns after twenty years to Toulon where her husband, who collaborated with the nazis, was murdered. Her motives are unclear.

The tribulations of a bisexual who's a bit of an exhibitionist.

A middle class leftist man of the Seventies decade, starting to show signs of aging and a loss of identity, runs away from his commitments.

Jeanne has been divorced for seven years now and her life is centered around Sarah, her fifteen year-old daughter. They appear to have a perfectly harmonious life together, a relationship based on deep mutual understanding and trust. So when Sarah needs a contraceptive, it's her mother who goes alone to the drugstore with her. However, under this idyllic surface there are tensions at work. Jeanne's on and off affair with Pierre does not save her from feeling lonely, and Sarah is bored by school. Both of them dream of an independent life, though neither will admit it.

In 1979, under the presidency of the city mayor, the people of Pessac elect a virtuous and gracious maiden from amongst the residents, following a tradition that comes from times immemorial.

Ben (Françoise Lebrun) is a woman who never gets to do what she really wants to do and is the victim of everybody and everything. Benedict is her imaginary creation: the girl who would respond with strength and mastery to situations she can only submit to. She is married to a cad who says he only married her because she was pregnant, and now he wants his freedom. Her real love is a fellow medical student, who shows some interest in her. Nonetheless, she remains faithful to her unenthusiastic husband, until she becomes pregnant again. At this point, she begins to act more like the Benedict of her dreams and less like the "Ben" she has lived as until now.

A poll for an advertising agency during a working day resulting in a series of meetings with women and men from different social strata, each one of them with a different problem.

The full soundtrack to Marguerite Duras' 1975 film India Song, about a French ambassador's wife in 1930s India, is here repurposed with all new cinematography. As we hear all the dialogue of a bygone movie, we travel visually through images of absence and decay, bereft of life. It's the ghost of a film, and a further commentary on colonialism.

India, 1937. Anne-Marie Stretter is the wife of the French ambassador and leads a solitary yet privileged life in Calcutta. The tedium of her existence is relieved by numerous illicit love affairs with government officials, young men who find her an object of desire and fascination. The Vice Consul is driven insane by his love for her and, expelled from the ambassador’s palace, cries like a sick animal. Life continues for Anne-Marie Stretter, the same tedious existence…

In the French countryside it's the day for peasants to kill a big fat pig. The slaughter goes on for a great part of the day as they work to store 140kg worth of meat.

A man returns to the place he once lived a passionate love affair with a woman who is now dead. So powerful are the emotions that seize him that he imagines she is still alive, and begins to live as if this were the case...

Aimless young Alexandre juggles his relationships with his girlfriend, Marie, and a casual lover named Veronika. Marie becomes increasingly jealous of Alexandre's fling with Veronika and as the trio continues their unsustainable affair, the emotional stakes get higher, leading to conflict and unhappiness.

A young woman escapes her father's house and goes to live in the city. There, she realises her father may still be controlling her life through the people she meets.