Gerda Diddens

Objectively, Odette Toulemonde has nothing to be happy about, but is. Balthazar Balsan has everything to be happy about, but isn’t. Odette, awkwardly forty, with a delightful hairdresser son and a daughter bogged down in adolescence, spends her days behind the cosmetic’s counter in a department store and her nights sewing feathers on costumes for Parisian variety shows. She dreams of thanking Balthazar Balsan, her favorite author, to whom – she believes – she owes her optimism. The rich and charming Parisian writer then turns up in her life in an unexpected way.

A chemist loses his job to outsourcing. Two years later and still jobless, he hits on a solution: to genuinely eliminate his competition.

Luxembourg's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2003

After her parents' death, a young woman moves in with her unsophisticated country relatives with unfortunate results.

Late 17th Century: Anne de Grandcamp and Lucie de Fontenelle, two little girls from Normandy, arrive at the Saint-Cyr school founded by Madame de Maintenon for educating the daughters of impoverished nobles ruined in wars and making them into free women. Madame de Maintenon is the secret wife of Louis XIV, and empowered by his support, she offers "her" two hundred fifty girls a playful and avant-garde education. Anne and Lucie, two inseparable friends, allow themselves to be carried away by the promise of a bright future. But Maintenon has arrived at the pinnacle of power through scheming and debasing herself and she now fears the fires of hell. She is counting on her model school to atone for her past sins.

Romeo, a lovelorn Roman musician in his 40s with 20 years since his only hit, consults a fortuneteller who predicts he'll find love and money with a foreign singer named for a flower. In Brussels he meets Marguerite, an older chanteuse who interprets Jacques Brel and loves her yappy dog.

Two young men have left their obscure Balkan country to earn some money as "guest workers" in western Europe. On their way back home, they attempt to change trains in Paris but encounter surprising difficulties from the ticket authorities there. It seems that political changes have rendered their homeland nonexistent, and their passports are no good. Before long, they are stranded in Paris without passports, without a country, and soon even their luggage is stolen. Their fumbling efforts to straighten out the mess result in the French press getting into the act, labeling them as Russian spies. The Parisian expatriate community takes them into its bosom, and romance blooms between one of the lads and a Spanish hatmaker, before they finally achieve a (highly improbable) solution for their difficulties.

Maria Garcia (Carmen Maura) is a television journalist and she's about to be a single mother. Her career foremost in her mind, she doesn't slow down even for a minute, despite her pregnancy. She is, however, taking Lamaze classes and is quite competently coping with the romantic attentions of a man she's not very interested in. It's not at all irrelevant that her news beat includes stories on terrorism, the greenhouse effect, pollution and genetic engineering, because when her baby's due date comes and goes, she starts hearing from her infant from in the womb. It is telling her that it and many other babies are refusing to be born into such a horrible world. She learns that this is true, and that the children born through induced labor are dying.

The antiques shop Gerard owns should help him to get rid of his financial problems. He dreams of writing the most important Dutch novel ever. Unfortunately he spends money like water. As a result he is constantly broke. His sister Ingrid is married to Pierre. She wants a child but he refuses. While Gerard is willing to consider leading a normal life, a wish mainly expressed by his parents, Ingrid's marriage falls apart.

Martin (Heinz Bennent), a sculptor, is dying in his bed on a barge that floats along a fog-shrouded waterway. As he agonizingly descends into a final oblivion, his second wife is at his bedside, comforted by his first wife -- also present.

Following over two dozen different people in the almost wordless atmosphere of a dark night in a Brussels town, Akerman examines acceptance and rejection in the realm of romance.

The last film prohibited by Francisco Franco. Jean-Marie Buchet plays the role of a collector of used tampons in this avant-garde comedy-adventure film.

Gerda Diddens' "Sprookje, of l'homme-objet" and "Découpage" form a very funny double metaphor about cinema and machismo.

An actor on screen insults the audience. How will spectators react?

Gerda Diddens' "Sprookje, of l'homme-objet" and "Découpage" form a very funny double metaphor about cinema and machismo.

Gerda Diddens' "Sprookje, of l'homme-objet" and "Découpage" form a very funny double metaphor about cinema and machismo.