La Mort

In the summer of 1986, Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub were working in the park of an old Sicilian mansion and in a clearing at the foot of Mount Etna shooting Der Tod des Empedokles. Assistant cameraman Jean-Paul Toraille toyed around, so to speak, with his first video camera, filming the daily work on the set. Now, 24 years later, he was joined by Jean-Marie Straub in editing the material into a film. Anyone who expected the shooting of Les Avatars de la mort d’Empédocle to be an austere affair, an exercise entirely devoid of humour or a Straubian tour de force is proven wrong: so much lightness, joy, concentration, spells of waiting for the sun to come out – and even proper slapstick in between – is hard to find.

In 1981, an American medical journal reported on a mysterious disease affecting young men in apparent good health. In France, the infectious diseases specialist Willy Rozenbaum discovered the description of these cases and believed he recognized the same type of symptoms in one of his patients. This was the beginning of the frightening epidemic of what would eventually be called AIDS. In France, for nearly fifteen years, different spheres of society fought relentlessly. Doctors, nurses, researchers, patient associations, journalists and artists each threw themselves into this fight in their own way.

When gold is discovered the first man there gets to stake his claim. Joe and another man race each other, which involves a thrilling episode on a train.

After a failed armed attack during which she abandons her companions, Hélène flees into the forest and meets Catherine, a mysterious alter ego, a carnivorous and tempting alter ego. This double will take her to a fantastic valley, where metamorphoses, poisonous powers and great upheavals will soon shake up the order of things. Hélène will have to revisit her choices and the moral, political and human dilemmas that circumscribe them.

A young and smart woman comes into a hotel. She is mysterious, and seems to be waiting for something while she’s preparing for it. She puts on some make-up, brushes her hair, walks inside the room without leaving it. Slowly the screen splits and her body breaks up, the space becomes abstract and the identity of the young woman seems confused. In the early morning, Maria Valdes is missed and the hotel room is desperately empty.

Santa is dead and many believe they are guilty. But what really happened?

A relentless cop sets a trap for the Grim Reaper himself, unaware that Death has a few tricks up his sleeve.

This film is made up of several reports shot by French and Allied war correspondents on 8 concentration camps located in Germany and liberated by the American and British armies in March and April 1945: Colditz, Langestein, Ohrdruf, Dachau, Buchenwald, Tekhla (Gardelegen), Belsen and Mittelgladbach A detailed description of the infrastructure and functioning of these death camps, where mass graves and starving survivors rub shoulders, bears witness to the atrocity and scale of the crimes committed by the Nazis.

The last trickster of the jungle makes friends with its gentle but timid neighbor.

The dreadful Major Totenschtein and his henchmen have developed a destructive satellite. But agent jase Bond is here to solve this mission in the time allotted.

This film begins, so to speak, where ‘Vol spécial’ left off. The reality of migration bears its teeth: Following a scuffle, 20-year-old Koumba from France is sent back to the place where she was raised – Senegal. She returns to the lost village of her ancestors hysterical, argumentative and unproductively rebellious. Now the mother of a toddler, she continues to come to terms with the two cultures; the outcome is unforeseeable, as is the outcome of this cinematic long-term observation. The risk of its failure due to its protagonist is palpable. But Koumba’s fascinating metamorphosis is also obvious, her body and character have taken on a more harmonious nature. All hope is not lost.