Denise de Casabianca

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) is on his deathbed. Looking at photographs brings memories of his childhood, his youth, his lovers, and the way the Great War put an end to a stratum of society. His memories are in no particular order, they move back and forth in time. Marcel at various ages interacts with Odette, with the beautiful Gilberte and her doomed husband, with the pleasure-seeking Baron de Charlus, with Marcel's lover Albertine, and with others; present also in memory are Marcel's beloved mother and grandmother. It seems as if to live is to remember and to capture memories is to create a work of great art. The memories parallel the final volume of Proust's novel.

The comedy in this lively film barely conceals its darker, more serious undertones as it chronicles a young Algerian's eye-opening introduction to the joys and travails of being an immigrant in Paris. Alilo has left his home to pick up an important suitcase for his employer. Unfortunately, he has lost the Parisian address. Fortunately, his cousin Mok, emigrated there several years before with his middle-class family before and is able to act as a guide. Mok, an aspiring rap singer, comes from a middle-class family, but chooses to live on his own in the dilapidated deteriorating 18th district, known as 'Moskova.' Mok characterizes the place as a haven for artists and intellectuals, but it is plainly just a Third World slum filled with tightly knit and colorful neighbors. Mok and Alilo have many interesting, some tragedy-tinged adventures over the five days it takes them to find the suitcase.

Pierre, a middle-aged tourist guide, is the victim of a sudden failure : he does not recognize anything about him any longer. He goes back home and in his apartment he finds a mysterious young man who tells him he is here to avenge a young woman who has taken her own life. What share of responsibility does Pierre hold in this situation?

Camille Prader, back from a physicians' meeting, is waiting for his suitcase on the Airport conveyor belt. Clémentine, his girlfriend of the day, has come to fetch him. With a radiant smile, she tells Fabrice that she left everything to live with him. When Camille picks a case he realizes ha has taken the wrong one. The label shows it belongs to a musician called Juliette Graveur. Hegrasps the occasion to run away from Clémentine by claiming Juliette is his mistress....

This second feature in Nacer Khemir's Desert Trilogy is a visually ravishing folktale reminiscent of "The Thousand and One Nights." The story revolves around Hassan, who is studying Arabic calligraphy from a grand master. Coming across a fragment of manuscript, Hassan goes in search of the missing pieces, believing that once he finds them, he will learn the secrets of love. With the help of Zin, a lovers’ go-between, he meets the beautiful Aziz, Princess of Samarkand. After encountering wars, a battle between false prophets and an ancient curse, he learns that an entire lifetime would not suffice for him to learn the many dimensions of love.

Toussaint and Madeleine have loved each other from the cradle. They are now sixty. They have reached retirement age and have decided to return to Corsica. Toussaint has spent thirty years underground in the maintenance workshops of the Paris metro system. he is happy, but Madeleine misses Paris with its excitement and, above all, their son, who is a doctor in one of the French capital's major hospitals. Madeleine has such love for her son that Toussaint teases her by saying she should ask the Pope for dispensation in order to marry him. Toussaint and Madeleine return to Balba at the beginning of the winter when the days are short, the village bar is closed and the men too scarce for even a game of cards. The silence is occasionally broken by the village idiot, Napolean, as he ambles about shouting the coming death of Corsica while on patrol of the locked-up houses he's been set to guard...

August 1917. Two pilots whose aircraft was shot down by the Germans hide in a castle. They meet Justin, the employee, who has just killed his master.

The name of painter Jean-Honore Fragonard (1732-1806) is synonymous for a kind of painting style which celebrates carefree romantic life, indoors and out. He was a painter during the final decades of the French monarchy. In this story, he and his brother Cyprien (Robin Renucci), who is an early pioneer in medical anatomy (he dissected corpses and made drawings of what he found in them), have fallen in love with the same woman, Marianne (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu), a laundress. This attraction has not escaped the notice of Salmon d'Anglas (Sami Frey), a conniving nobleman, who has his heart set on getting revenge on Jean-Honore (Joachim de Almeida) for refusing his patronage and becoming the darling of the French court.

When Éric and Marie go to meet their parents at the harbor for the holidays, the latter are victims of an overnight hit-and-run. Marie hides the truth from Éric, investigates the accident alone, and soon finds the presumed culprit.

Downtrodden writer Henry and distressed goddess Wanda aren't exactly husband and wife: they're wedded to their bar stools. But, they like each other's company—and Barfly captures their giddy, gin-soaked attempts to make a go of life on the skids.

In a somewhat deflated story of robbery and deception set against the rooftops and byways of Paris, a group of enterprising petty thieves take advantage of the dog days of August to burglarize vacated apartments. At this time of year, all Parisiens are on vacation elsewhere, and the city is invaded by tourists on vacation from their own cities. In this mass rearrangement of the European population, the thieves get away with their looting until they run into an architect who catches them in the act. But his morals are nothing to brag about, as he gets more involved in what they are doing and wants some of their take. He is also smitten with one of the down-and-out women the thieves have been supporting (Dominque Laffin). As in so many French dramas, these conflicting relationships are doomed to be resolved only by tragedy.

Swaying between pleasure and despair, Elric throws himself into his pathological passion for the casino. Meeting Suzie could have saved him, but the young woman also sinks into gambling hell. The couple then start getting involved in the fearsome world of professional cheaters.

Henri is a lonely, isolated young man who lets no one get close to him. He meets a street hustler and comes out of his shell, going 180 degrees into gay obsession. Though he has yet to physically approach the object of his affection, Henri builds up so much unrequited lust that it explodes with horrible results.

Village of Artigat, southern France, summer 1542, during the reign of Francis I. Martin Guerre and Bertrande de Rols marry. A few years later, accused of having committed a robbery, Martin suddenly disappears. When, almost a decade later, a man arrives in Artigat claiming to be Martin, the Guerre family recognizes him as such; but doubts soon arise about his true identity.

A 1978 French documentary film directed by Albert Lamorisse about the landscape of Iran. Lamorisse was killed in a helicopter crash while filming the documentary, during a helicopter-tour of Iran. His widow completed the film, based on his production notes, and released the film eight years later in 1978.

A documentary that follows Dr. Penny Patterson's current scientific study of Koko, a gorilla who communicates through American Sign Language.

Pauline intends to end her days and meticulously prepares her suicide, but she meets Peppo, an Italian immigrant, who will change her mind.

After breaking into a house he believes is empty, thief Olivier is caught by the owner, Ariane, who turns out to be a dominatrix. Improbably falling for her, Olivier returns periodically, and an impulsive romance blossoms despite Ariane's profession. Soon Olivier becomes more familiar with her work, even joining in on occasion. However, when he discovers that Ariane has a son, he attempts to "fix" her, hoping to give her a better life.

Filmmaker Barbet Schroeder shows the Ugandan dictator meeting his Cabinet, reviewing his troops, explaining his ideology.

A very personal interpretation, to say the least, of the passion of the Christ According to St. John.

Documentary on various aspects of Kuwaiti life, the contrasts between a backward society that lives in the desert and a very modern society that lives in the city.

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.

Out 1: Spectre begins as nothing more than scenes from Parisian life; only as time goes by do we realize that there is a plot—perhaps playful, perhaps sinister—that implicates not just the thirteen characters, but maybe everyone, everywhere. Real life may be nothing but an enormous yarn someone somewhere is spinning...

Viviane, a French Consul's wife, is in New Guinea to find exotic feathers for export to Paris. She encounters four European travelers who are en route to "La Vallée": The Valley, high in the Guinean mountains, is shown on maps as 'obscured by clouds' and is beyond their previous experiences. Viviane joins their trek to find rare feathers and soon becomes entwined in their journey. Their extended stay with the Mapuga tribe brings a denouement between western and indigenous values before their final quest toward the 'Valley of the Gods'.

Short film about the Mapuga tribe’s feast of pigs with sweet potatoes.

Short film on the ceremony of ‘Sing Sing’ practised by Papua New Guinea’s tribes.

Short film that examines the different types of ceremonial make-up worn by the Mapuga tribe.

A German student, Stefan, now finished with his studies, hitchhikes to Paris. There he meets a free-spirited American girl, Estelle, who he follows to Ibiza. The two begin a sad and dark path into heroin addiction. Barbet Schroeder's first film, also notable for its soundtrack which was composed by Pink Floyd.

20 years later, the recreation of the trial of a simple man that confesses himself as a war criminal, Carl Emmanuel Jung.

Produced over several years between 1962 and 1967, Grimaces shows the faces of over a hundred artists, gallery owners and critics grimacing to the camera.

Insane asylum inmates escape their confinement and hole up in a deserted Belgian farmhouse, where they cook large quantities of eggs and condemn one of their own in an impromptu court. Accompanied by a frenetic original soundtrack by the great Ornette Coleman and starring The Living Theater.

In eighteenth-century France, a girl is forced against her will to take vows as a nun. Three mothers superior treat her in radically different ways, ranging from maternal concern, to sadistic persecution, to lesbian desire.

A Bullet Through the Heart (French: Une balle au cœur, Greek: Μια σφαίρα στην καρδιά) is a 1966 Franco-Greek film directed by Jean-Daniel Pollet. Francesco, a young Sicilian aristocrat, scars an aging gangster who has set out to take away his property. The gangster vows to obtain vengeance, and Francesco is forced to flee across Greece with his girl friend, pursued by his antagonist's vicious henchmen.

After twenty-seven long months spent in Algeria, Frédéric Simon, a young photographer is determined to forget this time of trouble. Now that the Army has finally discharged him he wants to live the good life. And at first, things go according to his wishes: not only does he marry Sylvie but they are invited by a wealthy man to Monte Carlo, where they spend a dream honeymoon. But back in Paris, hard times await them. Not finding work easily along with having to live in a cramped apartment make Frédéric bitter and unpleasant. When Sylvie becomes pregnant, he slams the door and finds consolation in the arms of Christine, an ex girlfriend, which he soon regrets. At last, the situation improves. Frédéric finds work and starts making money as a fashion photographer. But the good life cannot go on: one morning a policeman knocks at the young couple's door: the country wants Frédéric back in the Army.

A bourgeois family, who is harassed and humiliated, ruins their young maids without pay for several years.

A southerner in the American Civil War is about to be hanged from a bridge for sabotage when the noose suddenly breaks. After he plunges into the water below, he must find a way to free himself, evade enemy forces and flee to safety.

A young woman joins a theatrical troupe where she slowly believes that the director is involved with a secret group and that he is in grave danger.

Roberto goes to Marseilles to give a hand to his friend Xavier, wrongly imprisoned following a frame-up organized by his associate Villanova. Roberto sets out to seduce Villanova's mistress, but when Villanova is killed, Roberto ends up leader of the band...

Anna, twenty-seven, married to building contractor Eric, refuses to live in his wake. Craving independence, she can exist through the art gallery she runs, but isn’t this occupation a mere wholesome distraction? When she meets Bruno and becomes his lover she thinks she will find fulfillment only to realize that she is just another plaything in a man’s hands.

An adaptation of Jean Cocteau's play of a woman lecturing her indifferent lover.

An American sculptor, passioned by literature, comes to Paris to perfect his art, but ends up with barely no money, and to survive has to sell The New York Herald Tribune, at night, to his compatriots. A look at the bohemian Parisian life of the fifties.

Claire (Vitry) is a chic young Parisian woman married to a somewhat older husband, Jean (Doniol-Valcroze). As the story opens, she leaves her husband playing baroque music at the piano, telling him she is off to see her sister, Solange. In reality she meets her lover, Claude (Brialy) at his apartment; after some idle chatter and love-making he tells her a story of the shriveled heads that the Jivaro Indians used to give their lovers as tokens of affection but, as she shivers in disgust, he gives her a mink instead. How will they hide it from her husband though?

Out of prison after a five-year stretch, jewel thief Tony turns down a quick job his friend Jo offers him, until he discovers that his old girlfriend Mado has become the lover of local gangster Pierre Grutter during Tony's absence. Expanding a minor smash-and-grab into a full-scale jewel heist, Tony and his crew appear to get away clean, but their actions after the job is completed threaten the lives of everyone involved.