A businessman leaves his country home, and wife and young son for a business trip to Paris. While there he develops a sexual and spiritual bond with a call girl.
Paris, seventies. In a hotel in the glittering Rue de Rivoli an English boy falls in love with the two young grandchildren of the owner. Based on the novel "La Mandarine" by Christine de Rivoyre.
1940. Victor Leizer, a young Jewish boy from Belleville, takes to the road to join his parents. There he meets Bernard Mirande, another young boy. But after being captured by the Gestapo, he is sent to the camps, where he becomes Commandant Braumann's scapegoat. But his adventures are just beginning...
Expatriate Henry Miller indulges in a variety of sexual escapades while struggling to establish himself as a serious writer in Paris.
A US intelligence officer, stationed in Germany, is caught in a political dilemma when the Russians kidnap a young Army private, the son of prominent American businessman. In exchange for the soldier's return, the Russians attempt to barter a trade for an elderly German couple who they want for treason.
After a tumultuous life, a middle-aged headwaiter in a Parisian restaurant dreams of opening a seaside amusement park. When an old flame reappears, he reignites his feelings, but she is involved with another man.
The story of two youths – one Algerian, one French – who become juvenile delinquents in a Paris suburb.
A disfigured musical genius, hidden away in the Paris Opera House, terrorises the opera company for the unwitting benefit of a young protégée whom he trains and loves. The 25th anniversary of the first public performance of Phantom of the Opera was celebrated with a grand performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
Nearly one in ten Czechs over the age of 15 face some form of distraint, under which their property is seized because of money they owe. Every day, more and more people fall into the debt trap, but Karel is on the other side of the barricade – it is his job to collect their debts.
After 20 years of marriage, Maria decides to leave her husband. She moves into room 212 at the hotel across the street, with a bird’s-eye view of her apartment, her husband and the life she shared with him. While she wonders if she made the right decision, many of the people in her life offer their opinions on the matter. They intend to let her know, whether she likes it or not, on what proves to be a life-changing evening.
Fact-based story about a Pasadena cab driver who picks up what he believes is a routine fare, an elderly woman on her way to a funeral. However, the wealthy woman is soon is insisting that the cabbie drive her on a cross-country trip that ends up entailing 3100 miles and ending in Vancouver. Initially contentious, the two eventually find a reluctant friendship growing.
Chante et tais-toi !
An exploration of love and loss in Paris.
Dida Ibsen, daughter of impoverished farmers, has, according to her father's will, to marry the main creditor. But she refuses and decides to live with a married man as a mistress, till he gets his divorce. In the town she opens a restaurant with the money of her wealthy lover, from whom she soon gets pregnant, but their dreams of marriage fail, his wife refuses the divorce. After a while, she decides to marry one of the regular guests at her restaurant, van Galen, who spent quite some time in the tropics and because of this is at the brink of madness. Shortly after the marriage his condition worsens and life becomes hell for Dida.
Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country, during which Axel challenges Eyal's values.
Lola receives a phone call from her boyfriend Manni. He lost 100,000 DM in a subway train that belongs to a very bad guy. She has 20 minutes to raise this amount and meet Manni. Otherwise, he will rob a store to get the money. Three different alternatives may happen depending on some minor event along Lola's run.
A man wants to smoke a cigarette. His lighter doesn't work. He has induction cookers. Today, alone, an average man in his home, how does he make fire?
Nine years later, Jesse travels across Europe giving readings from a book he wrote about the night he spent in Vienna with Celine. After his reading in Paris, Celine finds him, and they spend part of the day together before Jesse has to again leave for a flight. They are both in relationships now, and Jesse has a son, but as their strong feelings for each other start to return, both confess a longing for more.
Based on Michel Houellebecq's controversial novel, Atomised (aka The Elementary Particles) focuses on Michael and Bruno, two very different half-brothers and their disturbed sexuality. After a chaotic childhood with a hippie mother only caring for her affairs, Michael, a molecular biologist, is more interested in genes than women, while Bruno is obsessed with his sexual desires, but mostly finds his satisfaction with prostitutes. But Bruno's life changes when he gets to know the experienced Christiane. In the meantime, Michael meets Annabelle, the love of his youth, again.
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds — with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk — that it might be possible for him to take human form.