François Hollande, le mal-aimé

Primary is a documentary film about the primary elections between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in 1960. Primary is the first documentary to use light equipment in order to follow their subjects in a more intimate filmmaking style. This unconventional way of filming created a new look for documentary films where the camera’s lens was right in the middle of what ever drama was occurring. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1998.

Four experienced mountaineers climb the three floors of the Eiffel Tower through the pillars of the building. A police officer, overwhelmed by the events, does not succeed in arresting the intrepid who reach the summit with agility under the stunned eyes of tourists. They then abseil and happily throw themselves into the Seine to celebrate the feat.

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

In 1900, the eyes of the whole world are on Paris. The World's Fair welcomed 50 million amazed visitors, and the city celebrated itself in a glamorous era. This period went down in history as the "Belle Époque." Elaborately restored and colorized historical photographs bring to life the exciting life in Paris between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of World War I in 1914. Bicycles, cars, airplanes, moving pictures, newly founded film studios, revolutionary composers and painters, avant-garde ballet performances, fashion houses, summer resorts on the Atlantic coast – life was intoxicating. People celebrate in the variety shows, cabarets, and revue theaters of Paris. Moulin Rouge, Folies Bergères, Bal Tabarin—in Paris, the nights are long and life is too short to sleep through. It is a dance on the volcano, given the political developments in the world.

Au cœur du Papotin

This is not a Documentary 2

In David Grubin's NAPOLEON watch Napoleon's rise from obscurity to victories that made him a hero to the French people and convinced him he was destined for greatness. Learn of his love for Josephine Beauharnais, and his rise to Emperor. Witness his extraordinary achievements and ultimately his fall, his final battles, his exile to Elba, and his defeat at Waterloo. For nearly two decades he strode the world stage like a colossus -- loved and despised, venerated and feared. From his birth on the rugged island of Corsica to his final exile on the godforsaken island of St. Helena, NAPOLEON brings this extraordinary figure to life.

Comprised entirely of archival footage taken during those pre-reality-television years, The Reagan Show looks at how Ronald Reagan redefined the look and feel of what it means to be the POTUS.

A very personal and dynamic meditation on the current global refugee crisis through the eyes and voices of campaigners, specially children, where past and present establish a dialogue. A reflection on the importance of human rights.

Didier face à Deschamps

Charlotte Gainsbourg looks at her mother Jane Birkin in a way she never did, overcoming a sense of reserve. Using a camera lens, they expose themselves to each other, begin to step back, leaving space for a mother-daughter relationship.

An enduring myth in U.S. presidential election history is that George H.W. Bush only lost his re-election bid in 1992 because a peculiar independent candidate from Texas, Ross Perot, drew more voters away from Bush than from Democratic candidate Bill Clinton. Perot ran a quirky "outsider" campaign that in many ways presaged the Donald Trump phenomenon of 2016. It all amounted to one of the most successful third-party bids in U.S. history; Perot won 19 percent of the popular vote.

A film essay contrasting the modern metropolis with its "golden age" from 1830-1930, with the participation of some of New York's leading political and cultural figures. Made at a time when the city was experiencing unprecedented real estate development on the one hand and unforeseen displacement of population and deterioration on the other. Empire City is the story of two New Yorks. The film explores the precarious coexistence of the service-based midtown Manhattan corporate headquarters with the peripheral New York of undereducated minorities living in increasing alienation.

On December 23, 2013, former Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt will be 95 years old. As the second Social Democratic head of government in the Federal Republic of Germany, he shaped the country like few other chancellors. Even 30 years after the end of his time in government, he is still a highly esteemed expert whose advice and opinions are in demand. He is one of the most popular chancellors among the population and is held in the highest esteem by his party; even his political opponents at the time pay him the greatest respect.

13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.

This lesson in political revelation focuses on the shooting down of the Malaysian passenger jet MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014. A meticulous, investigative exposé that lays bare the mechanisms of Russian warfare.

In May 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing became the third President of the Fifth Republic. An alternation of power that did not speak its name opened the doors of power to a reforming president. Abortion, divorce by mutual consent, lowering the age of majority to 18 - in less than two years, the youngest President of the Republic - at the time - carried out reforms with a vengeance, without a united majority in Parliament, before failing in the economic sphere and losing the battle against unemployment. At the age of 90, the former President of the Republic has agreed to look back on these years and gives us a valuable account of his time in power.

Follows the waves of literary, political, and cultural history as charted by the The New York Review of Books, America’s leading journal of ideas for over 50 years. Provocative, idiosyncratic and incendiary, the film weaves rarely seen archival material, contributor interviews, excerpts from writings by such icons as James Baldwin, Gore Vidal, and Joan Didion along with original verité footage filmed in the Review’s West Village offices.

In South Korea, 2002, the Democratic Party put the presidential nomination to a plebiscite for the first time. Amongst numerous candidates, the one who brought about the most unexpected result was a fringe candidate named Roh Moo-hyun.

L'Adieu à Solférino