Between the nostalgia of resurfacing roots and the desire to venture into song to experience a rebirth, Nicolas Maury reveals himself unguarded before Didier Varrod, with a deeply moving sincerity. Nicolas Maury released his first album, La porcelaine de Limoges, in January 2023—a new experience for this unique, demanding, and multifaceted actor. It is an opportunity to paint an intimate portrait of him through an extended interview on a train between Paris and Limoges. In this specific setting, which was also that of his first (silent) film role with Patrice Chéreau in Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train, Nicolas discovers archives and hears from close acquaintances who speak about him. A documentary film, like a kind of initiation rite, it moves back and forth between memories of France and childhood, and his condition as a man and artist today, taking on a new identity through music.
This documentary explores the inner life of François Mitterrand from a unique perspective: that of the writer he never ceased to be. From bookworm child to prolific author, from his brilliant speeches to his literary friendships, François Mitterrand's life cannot be separated from the literary world. His daughter Mazarine Pingeot undertakes to read the texts left behind by her father.
New light is shed on the complex relationship between Romy Schneider and her mother Magda, a German film star of the 1930s admired by Hitler - who welcomed her and her daughter to his chalet in Berchtesgaden.
How have the changing views on children been reflected in their representation in art? From Baby Jesus to the first photographic portraits, an exploration of six centuries of art history through the prism of childhood.
Everyone knows Aguigui Mouna, the jester who harangues the crowds on the Beaubourg esplanade in Paris and rides his bicycle through demonstrations. But many don't know the story of André Dupont, a Savoyard raised in tough conditions, forced into violence in the navy to rise to power and into resourcefulness in civilian life to survive. Antibes, 1952, the transformation: Aguigui Mouna is born. Laughter, solidarity, non-violence, humanism—Mouna has found the meaning of his existence. He will try to share them with all the robots of this "poop-pee-capitalist" society. A comic book character who, through his adventures, reveals the absurdities of his century.
"Well, I believe in anarchy! And I believe it will come true one day." That's what "May the Rebel," a union activist, anti-militarist, and anarchist, always ready to denounce oppression and defend victims, affirms at 85. Born in Brittany, she earned her living at age 10 delivering butter. In Paris, at 20, she became involved with the Anarchist Union. Sébastien Faure became her mentor. She used a grenade to trigger the Sacco-Vanzetti affair. A union delegate in Moscow in 1922, she sang "Hymn to Anarchy" before Trotsky. Children during the Spanish Civil War, Jews during the Second World War, conscientious objectors alongside Louis Lecoin during the Algerian War, and later, through her newspaper Le Réfractaire, the Larzac, Plogoff, and Creys-Malville protests—all these were battlegrounds for May Picqueray. To the very end, she remained true to her commitment to defending peace and individual liberties.
Filmmaker Froukje van Wengerden’s 86-year-old grandmother shares a powerful memory from 1944, when she was just 14. As her story unfolds, we see a group of contemporary 14-year-old girls. Their procession of portraits permits the spectator to see simultaneously forward and back, into the future and towards the past. A miraculous testimonial that uses eye contact to focus the viewer inward and evoke unexpected emotions.
A portrait of the Director’s maternal grandmother, Eliane, a French woman who lived her entire life in Tunisia. The film shows her last moments at home with her family before her passing due to Alzheimer's disease.
Un jour en France
"It takes courage to accept growing old. It's the response to the cruelty of passing time that I wanted to film." (Xavier Liébard) A group of elderly people decided to live their journey through middle age to the fullest. United in the same small group for over fifteen years, they chose to share their vitality through song with others, those whom old age has excluded from the social, familial, and human experience. Against all odds, "The Joyful Companions" are active and committed to maintaining the social connections that bind them to life. But what strategies, tricks, and struggles they must invent to live old age with hope... Xavier Liébard Director, Writer
À la hauteur
La bande à Fifi : plus besoin d'Alibi
A young woman of the Tarahumara, well-known for their extraordinary long distance running abilities, wins ultramarathons seemingly out of nowhere despite running in sandals.
With more than 70 films and 160 million cumulative tickets in France, Jean-Paul Belmondo is one of the essential stars of French cinema.
A man tells the story of his three cats.
Adapted from famous French actor Philippe Torreton’s best-seller, GRANDMA is the portrait of the actor’s grandmother: a modest, unique but universal Norman peasant. Enriched with amateur films, nourished by major historical events, GRANDMA also tells the story of the end of a world, that of the countryside of our grandmothers, before the abyss of modernity.
Over many years, the director’s father filmed his family life almost obsessively. His daughter’s birth, his son’s first steps, and always Valérie, the young mother. An impressive fund of material which their now grown-up daughter Faustine appropriates to tell quite a different story: that of a woman who sees her role as a mother and its demands take away her freedom step by step.
Il mio nome è Battaglia
Portrait of photographer Bengt Åke Kimbré where he narrates his own life story accompanied by his photographs.
J'ai décidé de mourir