Orane Demazis

A perfect summer divertissement, the very rare Break of Day is based on the quasi-autobiographical novel by Colette, a serene, sometimes joyous meditation in which the novelist puzzles through the state in which she found herself, an older woman, traduced and misused in love, fearing that she would never be wanted again. Instead of obsessing on loss, she insists, one must accept it; at a certain age one must recognize the limits of human relationships and transfer one's attentions to nature.

Catherine (Juliet Berto) is the temporary head of the family while her husband, whom she loathes, is away fighting in the war. Her widowed sister-in-law Suzanne (Anna Prucnal) lives with her, and after awhile it becomes apparent that Catherine loathes her as well. The children in the house are all boys -- Catherine has two sons, twelve and thirteen, and Suzanne also has a twelve-year old. While the relationship between Suzanne and Catherine is coming to a head, Catherine is having an affair with an army officer, and the boys in the family are planning a musical performance for everyone. The crescendo may be barely audible at the beginning, but it builds up to a tragedy at the end.

This Surrealist film, with a title referencing the Communist Manifesto, strings together short incidents based on the life of director Luis Buñuel. Presented as chance encounters, these loosely related, intersecting situations, all without a consistent protagonist, reach from the 19th century to the 1970s. Touching briefly on subjects such as execution, pedophilia, incest, and sex, the film features an array of characters, including a sick father and incompetent police officers.

Jeanne looks back on her love for Jean. The melancholic young man wouldn't accept the world as it was, always wishing to depart. She doesn't know that he's dead.

Le Cas Du Dr. Laurent (The Case of Dr. Laurent) stars Jean Gabin as a Paris-based doctor who tries to spread the gospel of Natural Childbirth. Working in a cloistered rural community, Gabin runs up against the stone walls of fear and prejudice. His theories are proven sound when unwed mother Nicole Courcel gives birth within Gabin's methodology. The childbirth sequence is filmed straight-on with a delicate combination of taste and frankness. Nonetheless, the lurid ad campaign of Cas Du Dr. Laurent sensationalized this sequence all out of proportion.

Just released from prison after serving a six-month sentence, Fernand Bastia goes into hiding. He has indeed double-crossed his gang by keeping part of the product of a robbery for himself. Thanks to his sister Marcella, Fernand has taken refuge in a small circus where she works. There, he falls in love with Gina but also arouses the jealousy of Quedchi, a fairground stall-holder who has seen him hiding the stolen money. After a while, Fredo Riccioni, the boss of the gang and his men, manage to trace him...

As in a Hollywood western, rice growers and bull cultivators come into conflict in the Camargue.

A proud femme fatale who works at a mountainous farm property manages, after being prodded by her lover, to become the heiress, but she plays the rival men against each other.

In a small Provençal port, a young girl tries to divert a fisherman from his laborious life and his chaste loves.

Antoine Vautier is a failed actor. A director hires Christian, Antoine's son, for a film. He immediately becomes a star. Antoine suffers from it. Christian's second film is a disaster and faced with the collapse of his son, Antoine forgets his jealousy.

The sentimental adventure of an old bachelor, mayor of his village and owner of a mill, who suddenly falls in love with a 20-year-old Parisian girl. This madness puts his whole house in disarray. Soon the fiancée lets herself be taken in by the charm of the mayor's nephew. The latter, who learns of it, conceives an appalling spite and wants to kill the lovers.

A pompous grocer’s assistant in Marseille annoys a visiting film crew so much that they prank him with a phony acting contract; believing it to be real, the “schpountz” heads to Paris for his new career.

In the 30s, a small village in the Provence is losing its inhabitants because young people prefer to go to the city to find easy jobs and escape from being farmers living in relative poverty. Only a few old people and the poacher Panturle remain. Panturle dreams of bringing the village back to life, finding a wife, founding a family and work as a farmer. One day, the village is visited by a traveling knife-grinder, Urbain Gedemus and a young woman, Arsule. Gedemus treats Arsule like a slave, but Arsule accept this because she has nowhere to go and -we guess- her 'work' with Gedemus is the last thing that saves her from being a prostitute. When she meets Panturle and knows about his dreams, she escapes from Gedemus and decides to stay with him. Together, they start a new life, made of hard farming work but mostly of happiness to have each other - fulfilling the earlier dreams of Panturle. Can anything break the happiness of their new life?

Honoré Panisse is dying, cheerfully, with friends, wife, and son at his side. He confesses to the priest in front of his friends; he insists that the doctor be truthful. But, he cannot bring himself to tell his son Césariot that his real father is Marius, the absent son of César, Césariot's godfather. Panisse leaves that to Fanny, the lad's mother. Dissembling that he's off to see a friend, Césariot then seeks Marius, now a mechanic in Toulon. Posing as a journalist, Césariot spends time with Marius and leaves believing tales he is a petty thief. Only after the truth comes out can Marius, Fanny, César, and Césariot step beyond the falsehoods, benign though they may be.

Angèle is a 1934 French drama film directed, produced and written by Marcel Pagnol. It stars Orane Demazis as a naive young woman who is seduced and abandoned. It is based on the novel Un de Baumugnes by Jean Giono.

The lives of numerous people over the course of 20 years in 19th century France, weaved together by the story of an ex-convict named Jean Valjean on the run from an obsessive police inspector, who pursues him for only a minor offense.

Picking up moments after the end of Marius, this film follows Fanny’s grief after Marius’s departure—and her realization that she’s pregnant. Panisse continues courting her and embraces the baby’s impending arrival as a gift, so long as its paternity remains a secret. Fanny and Panisse wed, but after her baby’s birth, Marius returns unexpectedly and demands what he believes is still his.

César runs a bar along Marseilles' port, assisted by his 23 year old son, Marius. Colorful characters abound: M. Panisse, an aging widower and prosperous sail maker; Honorine, a fishmonger with a sidewalk stall near the bar; her daughter, Fanny, who helps her sell cockles just outside the bar; and various old salts. Friends since childhood, Fanny and Marius love each other, but Marius has a secret wanderlust: every ship's whistle stirs a longing for foreign lands. When M. Panisse seeks Fanny's hand in marriage and when a departing clipper needs a deckhand, Marius and Fanny must decide who and what they love most. César, with his generous, wise spirit, tries to guide his son.