Alex Descas

Frantz Fanon alone embodies all the issues of French colonial history. Martinican resistance fighter, he enlisted, like millions of colonial soldiers, in the Free Army out of loyalty to France and the idea of freedom that it embodies for him. A writer, he participated in the bubbling life of Saint-Germain with Césaire, Senghor and Sartre, debating tirelessly on the destiny of colonized peoples. As a doctor, he revolutionized the practice of psychiatry, seeking in the relations of domination of colonial societies the foundations of the pathologies of his patients in Blida. Activist, he brings together through his action and his history of him, the anger of peoples crushed by centuries of colonial oppression. But beyond this exceptional journey which makes sensitive the permanence of French colonialism in the Lesser Antilles at the gates of the Algerian desert, he leaves an incomparable body of work which has made him today one of the most studied French authors across the Atlantic.

Diciembre de 2012. Tras cuatro meses de cautiverio en Siria, dos periodistas franceses son liberados. Gabriel, el más joven, tiene algo más de 30 años. Después de pasar chequeos médicos y contestar a muchas preguntas, puede estar con su familia y su novia. Transcurren unas semanas, e incapaz de encontrar un rumbo a su vida, decide ir a Goa, donde creció. Allí conocerá a Maya.

La historia gira en torno a Laura, una chica de 22 años que se está buscando a sí misma. Después de finalizar con éxito sus estudios literarios, se alista en la marina francesa como oficial de comunicación. Se tiene que adaptar rápidamente y asimilar las reglas que rigen la institución. Pero Laura está decidida. Tiene que aprender. Seguir aprendiendo. Aprender a conocerse y a aceptarse. Encontrar su sitio.

Isabelle, madre soltera, artista divorciada con un hijo, busca el amor verdadero, pero sólo va encontrando decepciones... Adaptación de la novela de Roland Barthès "Fragmentos de un discurso amoroso".

Thomas, an architect, discovers that he made a serious mistake on a building site. As he attempts to destroy compromising documents, it is the world around him that mysteriously begins to disappear. No one seems to escape this fantastic gear, not even Thomas.

Having arrived in Paris in 1985, Hector did everything to be like “them”. In a notebook he finds in his flat, he crosses out a list of things he should do or pay attention to if he wants to become part of the French elite. In a painful dialogue with Martin, his alleged son, Hector notices himself in Martin; a young man full of dreams and ideals that turn out not to be matched by reality. Metropole is a film about migration, about assimilation, about the haunting of one’s past. It is a film about identity; lost, assumed, false. Metropole tells the story of millions of people out there who leave their homes behind in order to find a new one.

Belle Époque. El payaso Chocolat (Omar Sy), el primer negro que trabajó en un circo francés, tuvo un enorme éxito a finales del siglo XIX. Fue también el primero en hacer publicidad, el que inspiró a otros artistas de la época como Toulouse Lautrec o a los hermanos Lumière participando en varias de sus primeras películas. Él y el payaso Foottit (James Thierrée) fueron pioneros en la creación de un dúo entre un payaso “Carablanca” y un payaso “Augusto” negro. Chocolat, cuyo nombre era Rafael Padilla, nació en Cuba hacia 1865 y, siendo un niño, se trasladó a Europa. En España trabajó como sirviente, limpiabotas y minero. El destino lo llevó a Francia a trabajar en el circo. Pasó de ser esclavo a ser un hombre libre, del circo al teatro, y del anonimato a la fama.

A companion to the director's Le Dos Rouge/Portrait of the Artist. A famous filmmaker works on his next film, which will focus on monstrosity. He is obsessed by the idea of finding a painting that will be central to the film and will crystallize all the power and beauty of monsters.

Un cineasta reconocido que trabaja en su próxima película, dedicada a la monstruosidad en la pintura. Se guía en su investigación en una historiadora del arte con la que comenzó unos extraños y apasionados debates.

In Madeleine Among the Dead, Bonello wanted to tell Hitchcock’s Vertigo from the perspective of Madeleine (played by Kim Novak), not Scottie (James Stewart). He only filmed a scene of this project as part of another film by Antoine Barraud, Le Dos Rouge, in which Bonello plays the role of a director by the same name; a director whose films are all either invented or his “ghost-movies.”

With two actors and no sets, master filmmaker Claire Denis traces the arc of a strained relationship, with a focus on race and language. In this fraught arena, words omitted can be as potentially devastating as words used, and what is not seen can have greater political consequences than what is.

In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, a middle-aged Port-au-Prince couple come face to face with the stark contradictions of Haitian society when they are forced to rent out their villa to a foreign aid worker and his enterprising local girlfriend.

Rebecca is a cop in the Juvenile Division. One day, Mathieu Francoeur comes to the station, saying his son, Joachim, has been kidnapped by his mother Christelle, with whom he's separated. However Rebecca had seven years earlier witnessed the man being extremely abusive to his ex-wife and child...

Marco Silvestri, capitán de un carguero, recibe una llamada que reclama su presencia inmediata en París. Sandra, su hermana, está desesperada. Su marido se ha suicidado, la empresa familiar se aproxima a la quiebra y su hija ha sido internada en un centro psiquiátrico. Sandra acusa al poderoso empresario Edouard Laporte de ser el responsable de su situación. Decidido a encontrar el punto débil de este hombre de negocios y llevar a cabo una terrible venganza, Marco se muda al edificio donde vive Raphaelle, la amante de Laporte.

A rich industrialist is brutally kidnapped. While he physically and mentally degenerates in imprisonment, the kidnappers, police and the board of the company of which he is director negotiate about the ransom of 50 million euro.

Sonia (Gainsbourg) y Daniel (Duris) mantienen una tormentosa relación; por eso, cuando un tipo se cuela en casa de Daniel con la intención de quedarse, Daniel da por supuesto que es cosa de Sonia. Sin embargo, tras la ruptura de la pareja, el nuevo inquilino permanece en la casa impertérrito, lo que crea un atmósfera tensa y llena de incógnitas.

Un hombre misterioso, desconfiado y solitario,que vive al margen de la ley y lleva siempre un violín bajo el brazo, llega a España con la intención de terminar un trabajo. En su camino se cruzarán los más peculiares personajes.

Lionel, a widower, has raised his daughter, Josephine, on his own since she was young. The two are used to living alone, depending solely on one another. But, now that Josephine is older, Lionel is beginning to realize they cannot stay isolated forever.

Carl is about to spend his first day with the police. To facilitate his entry into the trade, the divisional commissioner assigned him with Alain, a man with a strong character.

Sandra, una joven italiana establecida en Londres, huye a Hong Kong para librarse de las turbulentas relaciones que mantenía con un magnate de las finanzas y con un asesino a sueldo que planea matar al primero...

"Tag!" - About the American malaria researcher Nkruma who arrives with a family to Gothenburg for a lecture at Sahlgrenska Hospital. Nkruma ends up in a strange prank. The adults play tag in the streets. Nkruma refuses to participate in the game. This will be fatal for him and his family.

A French couple has been living in Lisbon for years, and they return to Paris for a friend's wedding. They announce to another friend they are having dinner with that they are going to split.

Un ciudadano francés, ya sexagenario, saca una importante suma de dinero de un banco suizo para sufragar su transplante de corazón. Después de la operación, viaja a Corea del Sur para discutir sus planes de construir el barco de sus sueños. Más tarde, el hombre continuará con un viaje hasta Tahití en busca de un hijo perdido.

Ninth is a promising young rapper whose reputation does not exceed even the few streets of his neighborhood. With his band and supported by Keuj, hairdresser apprentice producer, he tries to attend concerts and trying to break into the music, to the chagrin of his mother, who would see him in a more conventional career at the post office...

Albert Renaud, a young French Canadian dreams of becoming a movie star and take the train to Hollywood. His trip is filled with adventures.

Two childhood friends, Joshua and Flint, are adrift in boredom in their area of Sainte-Rose, Guadeloupe. They're involved in petty theft and ordinary System D, until the arrival of Marcus. Caught in a spiral, the difficult choices has to be done...

At the end of 19th century, Doctor Pierre Adélaïde, born in Martinique, gets to a small village in Charente to take over from a colleague. Soon, he is facing something else than racism: fear of foreigner. His office is desperately empty.

Portrait of Nord-Plage, a small neighborhood in the north of Martinique, which is slowly dying, and its last inhabitants, who have put aside their hopes and dreams.

It is the story of a prohibited and perverted identification: how an eight-year-old boy, entrusted to the care of his mother since the separation of the parents, meets and looks at his father, all day long.

En 1993, un corto de Jim Jarmusch titulado "Coffee and Cigarettes" recibió la Palma de Oro del Festival de Cannes. Once años depués Jarmusch rueda "Coffee and Cigarettes", un conjunto de episodios cortos. Cada secuencia muestra a diversos personajes sentados a una mesa, tomando café, fumando cigarrillos y discutiendo sobre temas tan diversos como la preparación del té inglés, las teorías sobre la conspiración contra Elvis Presley, Abbot & Costello, la ficticia banda de rock SQÜRL, París en los años veinte o el uso de la nicotina como insecticida...

Tiresia, un transexual brasileño de extrema belleza, vive en forma ilegal con su hermano, Terranova, en la periferia de París. Éste, un esteta con ideas poéticas, observa a Tiresia como si se tratara de una rosa perfecta, y termina secuestrándola para que sólo a él le pertenezca. Privada de sus hormonas diarias, Tiresia se va transformando poco a poco frente a sus ojos...

Alphonse Brown, who firmly believes he is the bastard son of James Brown, meets up with his best friend Scotch after Brown gets out of jail. On their way to Paris to begin careers as recording artists, the pair stumbles across a potent type of marijuana that was engineered by the Nazis. Their decision to begin selling the stuff leads to a variety of people chasing after them.

Consta de varios episodios, cada uno de ellos realizado por un director. El tema es el tiempo. Es el complemento de "Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet".

A train conversation between an immigrant French woman and novelist Jean-Luc Nancy centering on the idea of intrusion within every foreigner (a more philosophical precursor to L'Intrus). A social commentary on the inherent fallacy - particularly in nations with a strong national identity like the U.S. and France - of the social notion that assimilation and integration embrace cultural differences; rather, it erases them.

This program of short films by Vincent Ravalec (Never twice, Le Masseur and Les Mots de l'amour) deals with themes such as desire and death through the journey of a group of characters.

El avión avanza silencioso a través de la noche, de Estados Unidos hacia París. Shane brinda con June, su joven esposa. Una vez que se duerme reclinada en su hombro, éste se deja penetrar un instante por el dolor que le produce la pesadilla que le espera vivir: en París, Léo no sale a recibir a Shane, no sale a recibir a a nadie. Está excluído de los hospitales, de los laboratorios donde se dedicaba a la investigación. Busca cobijo en Corea, en sus andanzas, en su coto de caza.

The true story of the rise to power and brutal assassination of the formerly vilified and later redeemed leader of the independent Congo, Patrice Lumumba. Using newly discovered historical evidence, Haitian-born and later Congo-raised writer and director Raoul Peck renders an emotional and tautly woven account of the mail clerk and beer salesman with a flair for oratory and an uncompromising belief in the capacity of his homeland to build a prosperous nation independent of its former Belgian overlords. Lumumba emerges here as the heroic sacrificial lamb dubiously portrayed by the international media and led to slaughter by commercial and political interests in Belgium, the United States, the international community, and Lumumba's own administration; a true story of political intrigue and murder where political entities, captains of commerce, and the military dovetail in their quest for economic and political hegemony.

Estambul, 1904, en vísperas de la caída del Imperio Otomano. En el harén del palacio del sultán Abdulhamit, el eunuco Nadir prepara a Safiye para ser la esposa favorita del sultán. A partir de aquí penetramos en un mundo secreto, enteramente femenino, lleno de intrigas, miedos, deseos contenidos, grandes amistades y traiciones.

Adrien va a morir. La enfermedad, latente desde hace tiempo, se hace visible y ya no puede ocultársela a sus amigos. El vacío que provocará su ausencia comienza a hacerse sentir, especialmente para Gabriel, uno de sus amigos más íntimos.

Yves Le Guen, a black man with a degree in economics, is hired as a handyman on the property of Mr. Moreau, a rich public works contractor. His arrival is going to upset the daily life of the inhabitants of the house.

A moving world of spirits and ghosts, condemned to brush against one another without really meeting since they have all emerged from a single perpetual dream: that of a young man who no longer wants to wake up, immersed as he is in this world of fascinating spectres.

Teenage siblings Nenette and Boni were raised apart as a result of their parents' divorce. Their mother, who doted on her son Boni, has died. He works for an interesting couple as a pizza baker, and is surprised and enraged when his younger sister, having run away from boarding school, suddenly turns up. There's a problem that they must confront.

In the nightclub where she works, Carole is dreaming. She has always dreamed of leaving her rainy Roubaix, her heavy guys and her lousy prospects. She is dreaming of Goa, India, where she thinks she will soon move with her friend Nora... She is dreaming about this, when Nora wakes her up with a catastrophic face... Nora, her best friend, who also works at the Emergency, and not at the night emergency room as her parents believe... Nora is sure she is pregnant. From Olivier, a rich son of a local family who had promised her marriage and a mansion.... In fact of promises, he is quick to back out, and only Carole's presence of mind allows them to get money from him, price of his cowardice. A little money moreover, that brings closer to Goa...

A series of six dramatic shorts, each from a different African country and all on the broad theme of "love in Africa."

Based on a play by Wole Soyinka, The Strong Breed, SO BE IT offers an emotionally searing allegory of present-day Africa's bloody internecine convulsions.

Un director francés desea recuperar el serial "Les Vampires" de Feuillade, pero al no encontrar una actriz francesa adecuada para interpretar a Irma Vep, la protagonista, decide contratar a Maggie Cheung, una actriz asiática que no sabe un palabra de francés. Sin embargo, son muchos los que creen que la obra de Feuillade carece de interés, razón por la cual los problemas se suceden desde el principio tanto dentro como fuera del plató.

Es verano, Lola tiene veinte años. Un día se queda dormida en un autobús, se pierde y aparece en un mundo extraño, invadido por la música. Salas de fiesta gigantes, bullicio, gente que viene y va. Emir vive allí, incapaz de amar, atado a su hermano Ismael, como siempre ha ocurrido desde la infancia. Para retardar la separación, Ismael está dispuesto a inventar juegos peligrosos, la droga, el boxeo. Saida es bailarina. Ama a Emir y vive con él y con su hermano desde el principio. Por generosidad, ella le ha seguido en todos sus avatares. No le tiene más que a él y todo le falta, incluso él. Es la historia de esas soledades que se frotan unas con otras en el placer, el baile, la saturación de la música. Y así hubiera podido continuar. Pero Lola ama a Emir. Debido al deseo que siente por él, ella expone su cuerpo, -y, sin quererlo, el de los demás- a un calor olvidado...

A young investigative journalist is about to publish a book with revelations about power and corruption. Three days before her television appearance, her apartment is devastated by an explosion. Forced into exile, she goes to the countryside where she meets a particularly endearing person.

Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), the mission doctor, theologian and philosopher who founded a hospital in the rainforests of Gabon, achieved sainthood in his lifetime, at least in the popular imagination. The critical assessment of his life and works in recent years, however, has been slightly more ambivalent. Ba Kobhio Bassek is the first director to examine this medical missionary from a purely African point-of-view.

One of a series of short films inspired by paintings. In this video, Jacques de Loustal's Le Contemplatif or "Duo".

Images of the Port Dauphine subway terminus are accompanied by a text read aloud about masturbation (branler is slang for jacking off) in this short subject.

La hermosa Daiga ha emigrado de Lituania a París y está buscando un lugar donde vivir y un trabajo. Theo es un músico con dificultades y su hermano Camille un bailarín travestí. Uno de estos personajes puede estar conectado a un asesino en serie que está aterrorizando todo París.

This drama focuses upon the psychological adjustment problems of a young boy whose family moves him from Africa to Paris, France. Moctar, a boy whose first 11 years were spent in a small village in Mali, is having difficulty adjusting to his new life in Paris. After several years in Paris, Moctar suddenly sees a terrible hyena in the street. When Moctar tries to explain his vision, he becomes the laughingstock of his peers and a patient for the school psychologist. No one believes Moctar, not even his parents, until he is befriended by Paulo who helps Moctar understand.

Four nameless people -- the old man, the woman, the soldier, and the gambler -- journey to a desolate wasteland beyond the limits of an unnamed city.

En 1991, la ONG Amnistía Internacional encargó 30 cortometrajes a 30 realizadores franceses, para montar un film colectivo que denunciara casos concretos de violación de los derechos humanos por razones políticas.

Dah and Jocelyn come from Benin, Africa, to coach their rooster, "S'en fout la mort", for an illicit cock-fight in the basement of a restaurant.

Los dos son policías. Sus estilos, diferentes. El objetivo, el mismo. Las bandas no se dejan manejar, pero las elecciones se acercan y los políticos exigen acabar con los traficantes.