In this complex chronicle of the evolution of a provincial family's life, the story follows three generations of at least two neighboring families from the 1890s to the 1970s. In one of many related tales, a man who was engaged to the older daughter of a farmer elopes with the younger one. After...
The plot centers around old Beethoven's fixation on the welfare of his nephew, for whom he fought a lengthy custody battle against his brother's former wife. Beethoven thought she was a bad influence on the boy. Sadly, the nephew isn't receptive to Beethoven's "overtures", and resents his boorish...
When Catherine is caught with her illicit lover by her father-in-law Paul, the concerned father leaves to tell his son Thomas about the incident. Paul is injured in an auto accident and returns home in a wheelchair unable to speak. Catherine's guilt weighs heavily on her as she hopes to never let...
A missed highway exit leads Darry Marzouki, an unemployed magician, to cross paths with Irène Montier Duval, a wealthy woman carrying a Hermès bag full of cash. Out of love, she acted as an intermediary in an arms deal between a French minister and Korea. When the deal was exposed, the minister...
Imagine, if you will, a somewhat contented married woman finding out her husband's infidelity during the celebration of a birthday party. That is what happens to Marie-France, when her husband, Henri, pulls out panties from his pocket to be used as a handkerchief. Marie-France becomes furious,...
In this drama, a provincial girl goes to Paris in search of her fortune. Although she finds the City of Light to be quite different from what she'd imagined it to be, the girl manages to retain her dignity. It is only after she is thoroughly disillusioned by her experiences there that she returns...
Emma has been happily married to Charles, a hardworking journalist, for over ten years. They have a son, and are considering having another child when she learns that she is both pregnant and HIV-positive at a time when Charles is away. As Emma has never used drugs or slept around, and has never...
Estranged childhood friends, both passionate filmmakers, find themselves on divergent paths: one an acclaimed Oscar winner, the other struggling in TV. Accusations of plagiarism further strain their relationship as one's success is built on the other's stolen ideas.
Alice is the widow of a Jewish surgeon who helps the former diplomat Jerome smuggle Jews out of Austria to save them from the Nazis. The duo recruits Charles, a shoe manufacturer whose uncle is a Nazi sympathizer in the Vichy government. Charles and Alice become lovers when they are picked up in...
Stage actress turned film actress and director, Nicole Garcia has worked with the greatest French directors. Mysterious, singular, elegant, she has become a major figure in French cinema, but in her forties, she wanted to tell her own stories. She took a big risk when she was being offered fewer...
Muriel, a writer nearing 50 whose older lover won't live with her in Paris, meets a man on a train - Samuel, an Arab. He's attracted to her and pursues her, dropping in, asserting himself. She's willing to connect. He's passionate, then boorish, then jealous and possessive. He seems fixed on "Who's...
Twenty-six people - including two daughters, an ex-wife, his last lover, actors, fellow directors and writers, a neighbor, and boyhood friends - talk about François Truffaut. They discuss his attitudes toward wealth, his early writings about cinema, the undercurrent of violence in his films and...
Michel returns from a trip. He meets up with his friends from the H.L.M. housing estate. Together, they have set up a meeting place. The developer has the place demolished. Furious, instead of rebelling, the friends organize a party in the housing estate. The party gets off to a good start, but a...
A challenging psychological drama where the carefully nurtured harmony of a family is shattered one lovely summer evening. Cédric, who is generally shut away in a world of his own, doesn't react very well to the happy news of his sister’s pregnancy.
In just ten films, Maurice Pialat painfully rose to the top of the cinema, draining into his legend a mad demand for truth as much as memorable fury to achieve it. With "L'Enfance nue", his first feature film at the age of 43, the filmmaker immediately made his mark, this "art of making things...
Barnie lives in Calais but works in London. Everyday, he takes the Eurostar to go to his office. Although he is married to Lucie, Barnie has two lovers in London: Margot, a young and fresh advertising executive, and Mark, a hot 35 years old auctioneer. Everything could work out fine like that,...