Directed by Florence Strauss • Documentary • 2020 • 56 minutes

Episode 1: The Romantic Ones
It takes a healthy dose of romanticism to try and build a film industry in a country whose economy is in ruins after war. But the producers in this episode were up for the challenge. Dissatisfied in Holly...

Directed by Florence Strauss • Documentary • 2020 • 56 minutes

Episode 2: The Tenacious Ones
“I came back here as though nothing had happened. The show must go on. Pretty stupid, I admit that. But that’s my character.” -- Pierre Braunberger

During WWII, the Nazis seized the operations of any pr...

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 Gianni di Gregorio • Drama • With Gianni di Gregorio, Stefania Sandrelli • 2023 • 91 minutes

Italian actor-director Gianni Di Gregorio (CITIZENS OF THE WORLD, THE SALT OF LIFE) returns to filmmaking with NEVER TOO LATE FOR LOVE, a tender and lighthearted romantic comedy set against t...

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 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 Denis Imbert • Drama • 2024 • 95 minutes

A celebrated writer with a penchant for extreme experiences and solo treks, Pierre (Jean Dujardin), is a survivor of his own life. He has always done everything on his terms. One drunken evening, he climbs the facade of a building and falls se...

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 Thomas Lilti • Drama • With Vincent Lacoste, François Cluzet, Adèle Exarchopoulos • 2024 • 102 minutes

In A Real Job, director Thomas Lilti (Hippocrates, The Freshman) turns his humanistic eye to an overlooked subject: the personal and professional lives of school teachers. Lacking s...

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...