The Family Forest

For a series of programs made for TV Fnac, Philippe Grandrieux meets different people who tell us, each in their own point of view, a story of images. After Paul Virilio (The World is an image) and before Jean-Louis Schaeffet, Le Trou noir (AKA The Black Hole) gives us the enlightened reflections of psychanalyst Juan David Nasio about real and reality.

No profession, no say, no freedom of expression. Life as a prince consort is not exactly pleasure taxing. No constitution ascribes any function to the husband of a queen. Nowhere does it say what he must or must not do. A life in the shadow of the crown. Can that go well?

Sniper: Bulletproof deconstructs and analyzes the little-known sniper events that have occurred when no other course of action was possible. The people who planned the takedowns, or pulled the trigger, share their techniques and bring to light the many factors that had to be considered in each mission: terrain, wind speed, temperature, elevation changes... all are critical to taking out targets considered bulletproof. A sniper has one chance, one breath, to rise to the occasion and save the day... if they miss, there may never be another opportunity. As these never told before stories unfold, the viewer also learns about the high-tech gear each sniper carries on their classified missions.

Do you know Lacan, which many consider as the greatest psychoanalyst since Freud? Beyond the myth, the legends and sometimes, the curses, this film by Gérard Miller allows us to discover his work and his personality, through the testimony of his patients, his students, and also his relatives. Born with the XXth century into an upper-middle-class Catholic family, a psychiatrist by training, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of culture, a friend of Picasso, Levi-Strauss and Sartre, Lacan was a great theoretician, an outstanding practitioner, and he remains the most modern, the most challenging and even the most sulphurous of psychoanalysts. The director Gerard Miller met Lacan thanks to his brother, Jacques-Alain, the most faithful of his students, who married his daughter Judith. Their close and intense relationship makes this film exceptional.

At the edge of the Yangtze River, not far from the Three Gorges Dam, young men and women take up employment on a cruise ship, where they confront rising waters and a radically changing China.

Brenda’s first memories were of growing up in a loving white foster family, before she was suddenly taken away and returned to her Aboriginal family. Decades later, she feels disconnected from both halves of her life, so she goes searching for the foster family with whom she had lost contact. Along the way she uncovers long-buried secrets, government lies, and the possibility of deeper connections to family and culture.

A feature length documentary which invites the viewer to rediscover an enchanted cosmos in the modern world by awakening to the divine within. The film examines the re-emergence of archaic techniques of ecstasy in the modern world by weaving a synthesis of ecological and evolutionary awareness,electronic dance culture, and the current pharmacological re-evaluation of entheogenic compounds.

Eliza Dushku takes on her homeland of Albania.

Raw and unflinching examination of the courageous life of basketball star and social justice activist Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. Born Chris Jackson, he overcame tremendous adversity to reach the NBA and found his true calling when he converted to Islam. His decision not to stand for the national anthem, however, turned him from prodigy to pariah. Told candidly by Abdul-Rauf himself more than 20 years later it’s the remarkable story of one man who kept the faith and paved the way for a social justice movement.

A captivating and personal detective story that uncovers the truth behind the childhood of Michaël Prazan's father, who escaped from Nazi-occupied France in 1942 thanks to the efforts of a female smuggler with mysterious motivations.

Why does Old Granny seem less lovable as she ages? 82-year-old Granny lives with her fifth son in a Guangzhou apartment, but spends most of the time by herself. Two of her children are dead, another two have their own families, and a further two divide their time between Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The only connection among members of this family seems to be the annual grave sweeping ceremony.

This rich and nuanced portrait of the remarkable, elusive Rothschild family uncovers the story behind the family's phenomenal economic success. The film tells the dynasty’s incredible saga, from the confines of the Frankfurt ghetto to the halls of royal palaces, all the while emphasizing the importance they placed on family unity and the profound role Judaism played in their lives, later using their influence to assist oppressed Jews throughout Europe. A definitive work of documentary cinema with a thoroughly engaging narrative, The Rothschild Saga brings their mysterious and fascinating history to life.

For three decades now, Qatar, this small desert kingdom, has not stopped being talked about; because of its financial power and the secrecy that surrounds it, the royal family that runs it fascinates as much as it frightens.

Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new wave, turns the camera on herself with this unique autobiographical documentary. Composed of film excerpts and elaborate dramatic re-creations, Varda's self-portrait recounts the highs and lows of her professional career, the many friendships that affected her life and her longtime marriage to cinematic giant Jacques Demy.

A film about the noted American linguist/political dissident and his warning about corporate media's role in modern propaganda.

Maya is Ayaibex's daughter, an addict in recovery that feels a blame for damages that caused her daughter, Maya decides to remember her mother's childhood experiences in her world of addiction to seek the redemption of the weight that her mother has loaded for 20 years and get both to forgiveness.

The director explores the birth origins of actress Merle Oberon, traveling to Tasmania and India in search of the truth, but her quest ultimately results in probably more questions than it answers.

A hilarious introduction, using as examples some of the best films ever made, to some of Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek's most exciting ideas on personal subjectivity, fantasy and reality, desire and sexuality.

The celebration of a city is held every year and nostalgia is the main guest. Around the city there is nothing but ruins and in the distance, four men walk the streets of a city that was once great.

The Élan School was a for-profit, residential behavior modification program and therapeutic boarding school located deep within the woods of Maine. Delinquent teenagers who failed to comply with other treatment programs were referred to the school as a last resort. Treatment entailed harsh discipline, surveillance, degradation, and downright abuse. Years later, the patients who were institutionalized in this facility still carry the trauma they endured, with mixed opinions on the impact of their experience.