In 1671, with war brewing with Holland, a penniless prince invites Louis XIV to three days of festivities at a chateau in Chantilly. The prince wants a commission as a general, so the extravagances are to impress the king. In charge of all is the steward, Vatel, a man of honor, talent, and low birth. The prince is craven in his longing for stature: no task is too menial or dishonorable for him to give Vatel. While Vatel tries to sustain dignity, he finds himself attracted to Anne de Montausier, the king's newest mistress. In Vatel, she finds someone who's authentic, living out his principles within the casual cruelties of court politics. Can the two of them escape unscathed?
A WWI veteran decides to build a memorial to all of the people who have mattered to him but are now dead.
At underground film of the 1st Popular Festival of Catalan Poetry filmed in the Proce Theater in Barcelona on May 25, 1970, in solidarity with political prisoners. The participating poets were: Agustí Bartra, Joan Oliver (Pere IV), Salvador Espriu, Joan Brossa, Francesc Vallverdú and Gabriel Ferrater.
Inside the Khmer Rouge takes an in-depth look at the history, domination, and current status of the Khmer Rouge (a Communist regime) in Cambodia. The film features revealing interviews with soldiers of both the modern Khmer Rouge and those who fight in opposition. A comprehensive timeline of the regime's five-year occupation in Cambodia is dissected and includes a review of key individuals, ideologies, and locations where devastation hit hardest. Following this, the film takes a look at the effects on the Cambodian citizens upon the retraction of Vietnamese forces. Inside the Khmer Rouge continues to investigate the current tactics the modern Khmer Rouge implement and their attempts to persuade followers in order to rebuild and expand their regime. Oppositely, local forces or "jungle soldiers" discuss their devices for assuring the destruction and atrocities once caused by the Khmer Rouge never happen again.
Les Enfants de la Patrie
A made-for-cable-TV docudrama about the trial of the men accused of conspiring to cause protesters to riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Combines in an innovative manner dramatic recreations (largely faithful to the actual trial transcripts) with documentary footage and interviews with the actual defendants.
Prominent Columbia University English and Comparative Literature professor Edward Said was well known in the United States for his tireless efforts to convey the plight of the Palestinian people, and in this film shot less than a year before his death resulting from incurable leukemia, the author of such books as {-Orientalism}, {-Culture and Imperialism}, and {-Power, Politics, and Culture} discusses with filmmakers his illness, his life, his education, and the continuing turmoil in Palestine. Diagnosed with the disease in 1991, Said struggled with his leukemia throughout the 1990s before refraining from interviews due to his increasingly fragile physical state. This interview was the one sole exception to his staunch "no interview" policy, and provides fascinating insight into the mind of the man who became Western society's most prominent spokesman for the Palestinian cause.
Too high, misused, unfair... a large part of the French and Europeans criticize taxes. From tax-rascal to tax revolt, the movement of yellow vests in France has returned to the center of attention the question of consent to tax. How to explain a different resistance to taxes from one country to another without tax pressure being an explanation? Is there a "good" tax? Jean Quatremer takes us on a journey to the tax center across Europe, to meet those who pay it, those who decide it, those who study it... or those who allow to avoid it.
Algiers. From the port to the souks, passing through the Jardin d'Essai, Dominique Cabrera transports us to the land where she was born, on the other side of the Mediterranean "where the sea is saltier". If most of the pieds-noirs left Algeria in the summer of 1962, some -a minority- remained. By going to meet them, the director makes her own inner journey.
In 25 AD, Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew in ancient Judea, opposes the occupying Roman empire. Falsely accused by a Roman childhood friend-turned-overlord of trying to kill the Roman governor, he is put into slavery and his mother and sister are taken away as prisoners.
Follows the investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy led by New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison.
A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.
Entre deux vagues
Alain Juppé is known to be a plain, hardworking, cold and brilliant man. In the 90's, all French political men, from François Mitterrand to Jacques Chirac, saw a great future for him. But judicial cases and a sentence broke this momentum. After a long spell in the wilderness, he came back and is now running for President among his political group, Les Républicains. In this frame, Franz-Olivier Giesbert followed him during several months, trying to understand the personality of this reborn political leader.
A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.
Katiana talks about her experiences as a woman in Haiti. As a woman, she faces many limitations and abuses from men who are more privileged than she is. Despite the difficulties of her condition, she has found the courage to achieve greater personal and financial independence.
In 1978, just after Le fond de l'Air Est Rouge, which mercilessly analyzed the previous ten years of the revolutionary left's momentum until its collapse, Chris Marker made this complementary piece entitled Quand le Siècle a Pris Forme (Guerre et Révolution).
Sigmaringen, le dernier refuge
Oscar-winner Michael Moore dives right into hostile territory with his daring and hilarious one-man show, deep in the heart of TrumpLand in the weeks before the 2016 election.
Wild About Hank is a documentary that covers the story of Hank, a cat, who ran for the Virginia U.S. senate seat in 2012 against George Allen and Tim Kaine. While the campaign began as satire, it turns into a more serious effort to raise awareness about both politics and animal welfare.