Marie Valera

An absurdly brutal and minimalist examination of the desperate search for financial backing by two small-time filmmakers, 'Rise and Fall' is knowingly self-referential, sad, and appropriately enough, a film shot on a miniscule budget in 16mm. Based on a novel by James Hadley Chase, with script by Jean-Luc Godard.

Doctor Valois has invented the "flashage", a cure for depressed people. After having tested it on monkeys, he tries with a first human patient, Alain Durieux. This is great success, everybody's happy except may be Alain's wife, Jeanne, who's worrying about the changes in Alain's personality. Other patients use the treatment with similar successes, and Valois's happy about it. But the monkeys are changing: non-cured ones are made mad by the over-stability and stereotyped behaviour of the cured ones. So are the humans. When Valois realises he can't stop the process, he decides to "flash" himself.

Série noire is a French crime television series created by Pierre Grimblat in 1984. The series was adapted from crime books by the publishing imprint of the same name. 36 episodes were filmed between 1984 and 1989, and were aired until 1991 on TF1.