Vie

A novelist, an actress, and a struggling young singer all attempt to make their mark in modern day Paris in director Marc Fitoussi's cynical entertainment industry satire. Bertrand is a French literary professor whose students all know that he is shacked up with pretty math teacher Solange despite the couple's best efforts to keep their relationship under the radar. Though no one in the school much cares for Bertrand's prose, self-flagellating student Frederic is the one notable exception. Meanwhile, as Bertrand struggles to deliver his second novel, recent big city arrival Cora finds that her fondness for outmoded songwriters may be having an adverse effect on her career trajectory. While Cora struggles to make ends meet by working at a popular chain steakhouse, even this attempt to remain afloat ultimately proves disastrous.

Angélique is a nursery school teacher. She loves the children: other people's, of course, and those of her partner Damien, who is going through a divorce. It is then that she realizes that she has contracted a very rare allergy... to children!

Two quarreling lovers from opposite sides of the economic scale take central stage in this drama about Veronique and Adrien. Veronique is wealthy and from the provinces, Adrien is impoverished and his ancestors come from Brittany. In spite of their different backgrounds, the two fall in love, marry, and eventually have a baby girl. At just about that time, Veronique decides to go back to school, and Adrien becomes both mother and father to their baby. Unable to cope with Veronique's new-found intellectual friends and different lifestyle, Adrien clashes with her, and their arguments lead to a separation for awhile. The two then get back together again, but not for long. It is on a return trip from visiting his mother in Brittany that Adrien's life undergoes a dramatic change, and his story takes an equally unexpected turn.

In the vibrant African neighborhood of Château d'Eau in Paris, Charles is the smoothest of all the hustlers. His job: to fill the districts numerous hair salons with customers. But when the competition is tough and everybody’s trying hard to be number one, dirty tricks are just around the corner.

Intention: To become famous and to make a lot of money. How intention was achieved: I didn't have anything better to do.

In 1906, Viscount Paul de Barfleur fell in love with Cri-Cri delagrange, a singer at the cabaret "La vie parisienne". But the young man's father separated the lovers, who then married, each on his own... Forty-seven years later, in 1953, Cri-Cri and Paul's respective granddaughter and grandson meet by chance and fall in love with each other. The girl's father disapproves of the affair and is about to put an end to it. But the old Vicomte de Barfleur, who has never been consoled by not marrying Cri-Cri, intervenes in time to save the couple's happiness.

A barefoot contessa, a screwed-up princess, an exquisite drunk, a bawdy aristocrat, a nightmare for puritanical America and the moguls of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Ava Gardner never stopped loving those she loved. She turned women green and made men sweat. And rejected with all her force the bulwark of normality.

In an antiquarian, a man buys a leather-bound blank book to use as diary. Once home, he finds the book has started writing itself - with Chapter I detailing everything that happened to him, including the book starting to write itself.

This short, bleak French-language drama is the first film by Canadian director Andre Theberge. The story concerns a young woman saddled with too many concerns and not enough means. She has been ill and has been given the job of sewing shirts as a means of recovery as well as a livelihood. Abandoned by her husband, she has three very young children to raise, and the combination of fatigue, worry, and just plain despair slowly send her over the brink.

Young doctor Garondet is summoned by renowned Professor Orloff. At Orloff's castle, Garondet discovers that the mad scientist has created an invisible yet murderous apeman.

It's a tale of two shocks. 1992, Les Nuits fauves hits theaters. 1993, Cyril Collard dies of AIDS. The artist and his film caused a scandal in 90s France, which suddenly realized the violence of the epidemic and the upheaval it would bring for its children... Collard's work still resonates today, through its depiction of the rage of life and sexual freedom, and the courage it takes to face up to the inevitability of the virus. This documentary is supported by powerful archive footage, allowing us to rediscover the destiny of a striking artist. It is also based on the testimonies of those who knew him and agreed to talk about who he was, the driving forces behind his rebellion and his way of creating. The film is also punctuated by readings from some of the thousands of letters sent to Cyril Collard, revealing what it was about his work that struck a chord with viewers, especially younger ones.

After twenty-seven long months spent in Algeria, Frédéric Simon, a young photographer is determined to forget this time of trouble. Now that the Army has finally discharged him he wants to live the good life. And at first, things go according to his wishes: not only does he marry Sylvie but they are invited by a wealthy man to Monte Carlo, where they spend a dream honeymoon. But back in Paris, hard times await them. Not finding work easily along with having to live in a cramped apartment make Frédéric bitter and unpleasant. When Sylvie becomes pregnant, he slams the door and finds consolation in the arms of Christine, an ex girlfriend, which he soon regrets. At last, the situation improves. Frédéric finds work and starts making money as a fashion photographer. But the good life cannot go on: one morning a policeman knocks at the young couple's door: the country wants Frédéric back in the Army.

In this Gilles Carle feature documentary on the game of chess, the international chess match is cast as a classic Western shoot-out. Three chess greats dominate the film: Russia's Anatoly Karpov; Viktor Korchnoi, a Russian defector; and American Bobby Fischer. Chess aficionados Camille Coudari and Fernando Arrabal analyze the personalities and strategies of the players and comment on the interplay of politics and chess.

The daily lives of persons of short stature, people who do not go unnoticed and for whom each day brings its share of unexpected events. The protagonists embrace their difference and live their lives to the fullest.