Tag Archives: France

On the one hand you have Judith Zahn, an arrogant, snobbish, bitchy Parisian editor. On the other hand meet Julien Demarsay: an insecure, timid, young bookseller from the East of France who has just written his first autobiographic novel, with what it takes of navel-contemplating and soul-searching. What do they have in common? Nothing much, except that sex will unite them, ambition part them before true love is born between them at last.
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In this sly comedy, six of the world’s worst gangsters managed to heist $2 million, but only one got away. Now after four years in the clink, five bumbling thieves from Montreal are forced to walk the famous Camino pilgrimage in Spain to prove they’ve changed their ways and deserve their cut of the loot.
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‘Three hundred men’ is one long night at Saint Jean de Dieu, in Marseille. The center welcomes and confines three hundred homeless men every night over the winter. This documentary is neither the description nor the chronicle of the life of a shelter. It portrays humanity reduced to its essence, when only remain speech, humor, anger or madness to affirm that one still exists.’
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Eleven directors from 11 countries each contribute an 11-minute short reflecting on the events of 11 September 2001. A village teacher in Iran tries to explain to her young students what’s happened. City kids in Burkina Faso think they’ve spotted Osama bin Laden. A deaf Frenchwoman in Manhattan writes a Dear John letter to a man who has left that morning for work at the World Trade Center. A Chilean remembers Allende. Events recall other deaths. A mother endures more than her son’s death. And so on. The tone varies, as do the locales. Most stories are about others coming to terms with the events of the day, but at least one confronts the viewer with tragedy and death.
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Hello, my name is Anna and I am nine years old. I wish you had known me before – I mean before my aunt Marga and my cousin Pilar came to my parents’house -, I was such a happy little girl. Before their coming life was a bed of roses. Of course my little brother could be a pain in the neck – little brothers always are, aren’t they? – but there was that wonderful big house, there was my Cuban-born nanny who cooked so well, there was the bath before dinner, not to mention this wonderful catechism class at the catholic school. But they did come, those Spanish intruders. And now never heard before names like “Franco”, “Allende”, “Women’s Lib”, “abortion”, the lot, have got into my life. Daddy and Mummy have suddenly become “communists”, although this a term that Bon Papa and Bonne Maman (my grandparents from Bordeaux, in fact) just hate. Because of the intruders not only did we move to a tiny apartment but the place is invaded day and night by “barbudos” (bearded men). No more bath before …
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My films are like that: in a room, but looking out onto an open sky. I can’t really say it except to repeat that Bresson note, ‘that without a thing changing, everything is different.’ The film exists. The fiction is set up, and we believe in it. The justness of the agreement leads us to believe it, because everything plays equally at being a sign.
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Luchino Visconti’s last film based on a novella by Gabrielle d’Annunzio is a haunting account of aristocratic chauvinism and sexual double standards in turn of the century Italy. Giannini as the psichotic husband whose lust cannot be satisfied. Antonelli as his sensitive and tormented wife and O’Neil as cunning possesive mistress.
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Retired professor of American origin lives solitary life in luxurious palazzo in Rome He is confronted by vulgar Italian marchesa and her companions: her lover, her daughter and daughter’s boyfriend and forced to rent to them an apartment on upper floor of his palazzo. From this point his quiet routine is turned into chaos by his tenants’ machinations, and everybody’s life is taking unexpected but inevitable turn.
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The story of the Swiss soldier, Henri Dunant (Jean-Louis Barrault), who was responsible for the founding of the Red Cross, and who was offered the first Nobel Peace Prize.
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Maurice is a French teenager who escaped France and begins working at a hype club in Brooklyn called BIZARRE. He quickly becomes a sort of ‘mascot’ of this incredible club.The owner and the artists that perform there love him, but Maurice can’t love…because of the past…and his secrets.
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Adam Verver, a US billionaire in London, dotes on daughter Maggie, an innocent abroad. An impecunious Italian, Prince Amerigo, marries her even though her best friend, Charlotte Stant, an alabaster beauty with brains, no money, and a practical and romantic nature, is his lover. She and Amerigo keep it secret from Maggie that they know each other, so Maggie interests her widowed father in Charlotte, who is happy with the match because she wants to be close to Amerigo. Charlotte desires him, the lovers risk discovery, Amerigo longs for Italy, Maggie wants to spare her father pain, and Adam wants to return to America to build a museum. Amidst lies and artifice, what fate awaits adulterers?
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“Pleasure (and its little inconveniences)” In Europe today, as chance, deceits and desires run their course, the army conscript meets the nurse, the nurse gets back together with the comedian, the comedian meets the married woman, the married woman gets back together with the VIP, the VIP meets the mad dog, the mad dog gets back together with his old friend Loulou and Loulou, naturally, meets Jack the Ripper…
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Big budget account of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the Americas. Released in 1992 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the discovery. Shows the disastrous effects the Europeans had on the original inhabitants, and Columbus’ struggle to civilize the New World.
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The ageing warden of a convent is berated by the Mother Superior for his bad language. To cure him of his affliction, the Bishop, an old friend of his, gives him a copy of the Bible and asks him to learn the Ten Commandments by heart. As the warden begins his task, the Devil leaps from the pages of the book in the form of a serpent and relishes in watching as one by one the Commandments are broken…
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In the late 1800’s, Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, falls for Sophie Chotek, a Czech countess. He’s already a problem to the Crown because of his political ideas; this love affair with someone not of royal blood breeches protocol. The Crown allows the union only after the couple agrees to a morganatic marriage. The emperor further neutralizes Franz by making him inspector general of the army, sending him afield for months at a time. In June of 1914, fearing for his safety, Sophie seeks permission to accompany Franz to Sarajevo; protocol dictates that no army troops attend Franz while she is present. An assassin strikes. Their deaths spark World War I.
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