Directed by Florence Strauss • Documentary • 2020 • 56 minutes

Episode 3: The Audacious Ones

It takes nerve to forge ahead with a film when you’re broke, but it’s the kind of nerve that led to the production of some of the most successful mid-century French films.

This episode argues that the ...

Directed by Florence Strauss • Documentary • 2020 • 56 minutes

Episode 4: The American Way

“The American Way” refers to studio production, in which producers don’t need to constantly search for financing—and directors don’t necessarily get the final cut, as enshrined in French law.

By the 1960...

Directed by Florence Strauss • Documentary • 2020 • 56 minutes

Episode 5: The Lovers

This episode focuses on producers driven by a true passion for film. Mag Bodard was a trailblazer—a woman producing films during an almost completely male-dominated era. In addition to the usual challenges of f...

Directed by Florence Strauss • Documentary • 2020 • 56 minutes

Episode 6 - The Immortals

“People told me I’d catch the bug,’ and it must be quite a bug because I’ve had it for 30 years.” — Raymond Danon

Raymond Danon projected a hard-nosed, no-nonsense persona. But that persona covered a deep ...

Directed by Florence Strauss • Documentary • 2020 • 56 minutes

Episode 7 - Censorship

In France, as elsewhere, the 1970s were an era that expanded the bounds of the permissible in film. There was an “anything goes” attitude — at least, anything that could make it past the censors.

Emmanuelle w...

Directed by Florence Strauss • Documentary • 2020 • 56 minutes

In this final episode, we meet a group of risk-taking producers at the tail end of a wide-open period of French cinema. Jean-Pierre Rassam lavished money on filmmakers he trusted, and didn’t bother reading scripts. (He also lived a l...

Directed by Thierry Demaizière & Alban Teurlai • Documentary • 2021 • 92 minutes

Lourdes is a beautiful mountainous village in the foothills of the French Pyrenees that went from a sleepy scenic town to a sacred wonder in 1858, when a 14-year-old peasant girl claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary...

Directed by Philippe Lioret • Drama • With Pierre Deladonchamps, Gabriel Arcand, Catherine de Léan • 2016 • 98 minutes

Contemporary French cinema’s great humanist, Philippe Lioret (‘Welcome‘) casts ‘Stranger by the Lake‘ star Pierre Deladonchamps as the lead of his latest film “A Kid” as Matthie...

Directed by Pierfrancesco Diliberto • Drama • With Cristiana Capotondi, Alex Bisconti • 2017 • 90 minutes

Pierfrancesco Diliberto (a renowned TV host and political comedian, better known as Pif) wrote, directed, and stars in this subversive, irreverent feature debut about Arturo, a young boy who...

Directed by David Mambouch • Documentary • 2020 • 105 minutes

Star choreographer Maguy Marin burst onto the 1970s French new wave dance scene. A contemporary of Pina Bausch, Marin’s work stood out for its theatrical aesthetic, political commentary, and audacious integration of traditional dance ...

Directed by Olivier Panchot • Drama • With Jail Lespert, Tcheky Caryo • 2014 • 90 minutes

Alex, son of the Marseille mafia boss, joined the Foreign Legion to run away from a rival gang years ago. Now, Alex deserts and returns to his hometown decided to settle down with his ex-girlfriend. His arr...

Directed by Nicolas Bedos • Drama • With Nicolas Bedos, Doria Tillier • 2017 • 120 minutes

The decades-spanning tumultuous romance of a quintessentially French couple is chronicled in the thought-provoking and scathingly funny MONSIEUR & MADAME ADELMAN. Told in flashback from the early 1970s for...

Directed by Cédric Anger • Drama • With Guillaume Canet, Ana Girardot, Jean-Yves Berteloot • 2016 • 111 minutes

Cédric Anger, once a critic for Cahiers du Cinéma, wrote and directed this chilling chronicle of notorious serial killer Alain Lamare (here renamed Franck Neuhart and played by Guillau...

Directed by Jeanne Herry • Drama • With Sandrine Kiberlain, Laurent Lafitte • 2014 • 105 minutes

Muriel is a big talker. In fact, she makes stuff up all the time and always tells tall tales.

In first-time director Judith Herry’s tragi-comedy NUMBER ONE FAN, Sandrine Kiberlain (Life of Riley, Ma...

Directed by Leila Bouzid • Drama • 2022 • 103 minutes

Ahmed (Sami Outalbali), French of Algerian origin, grew up in the suburbs of Paris. At the university, he meets Farah (Zbeida Belhajamor), a young Tunisian woman, full of energy, who has just arrived in Paris. While discovering a corpus of se...

Directed by Jacqueline Audry • Drama • With Edwige Feuillere, Simone Simon • 1950 • 96 minutes

OLIVIA is a remarkable work by one of France’s first ground-breaking female filmmakers, which easily merits rediscovery today after being neglected for almost 70 years. 

Plunging the viewer—and the ma...

Directed by Pascal Plisson • Documentary • 2013 • 77 minutes

They live in all four corners of the planet and share a thirst for knowledge. Almost instinctively, they know that their wellbeing (indeed, their survival) depend on knowledge and education. From the dangerous savannahs of Kenya to the...

Directed by Christophe Barratier • Drama • With Arthur Dupont, François-Xavier Demaison, Sabrina Ouazani • 2018 • 117 minutes

Before the subprime mortgage crisis began unfolding in 2008, causing chaos in world markets and misery among millions of homeowners, another financial apocalypse was alre...

Directed by Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger, Samuel Theis • Drama • With Angélique Litzenburger, Joseph Bour, Mario Theis, Samuel Theis, Séverine Litzenburger, Cynthia Litzenburger • 2014 • 95 minutes

Angelique is a 60-year-old bar hostess in a cabaret located near the border between France and...

Directed by Laurent Tirard • Drama • With Jean Dujardin, Mélanie Laurent • 2018 • 90 minutes

France, 1809: The charming Captain Neuville (Jean Dujardin, THE ARTIST) is set to marry the naïve Pauline (Noémie Merlant) when the war breaks out, forcing Neuville to depart for the battlefield. After n...

Directed by Philippe Garrel • Drama • With Logann Antuofermo, Oulaya Amamra, André Wilms • 2020 • 101 minutes

Veteran filmmaker Philippe Garrel once again fashions a pinpoint-precise and economical study of young love and its prevarications, which ever so gradually blossoms into an emotionally r...

Directed by Nicolas Vanier • Drama • With François Cluzet, Eric Elmosnino, Valerie Karsenti, François Berléand, Jean Scandel • 2017 • 116 minutes

Trapped behind the high walls of an austere orphanage in suburban Paris, Paul (Jean Scandel) has only ever known one home. His chance to discover the ...

Directed by Tommy Weber • Drama • With Aurélien Gabrielli, Hortense Gélinet, Elise Lhomeau • 2015 • 82 minutes

Antoine has made up his mind to escape to the coast on the first morning train. With only a few euros in his pocket, he does not have enough to pay for his ticket. An entire night lies ...

Directed by Olivier Peyon • Drama • 2021 • 101 minutes

In March 2011, the largest tsunami in Japan's history triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Newly transferred to Tokyo from Hong Kong, French executive Alexandra (Karin Viard) finds herself in the middle of the confusion and panic of the...