The Big House

Iranian Iradj Azimi directed this French historical drama re-creating events depicted in the famous 1819 painting The Raft of the Medusa by Jean Louis Andre Theodore Gericault (1791-1824). The ill-fated voyage of the frigate Medusa begins when it departs Rochefort for Senegal in 1816. After striking a sandbar off the African coast, 150 civilians row safely to shore, but Captain Chaumareys (Jean Yanne) orders 140 soldiers and sailors onto a raft (minus supplies) and has it cut loose. Only 14 survive from the 140, creating a scandal back in France. Gericault (Laurent Terzieff) later talks to three of the survivors while researching his painting. Work on this film began in 1987, but sets destroyed by Hurricane Hugo caused delays, so the film was not completed until 1990. However, it then remained undistributed until an incident in which writer-director Azimi slashed his wrists in front of French Ministry of Culture officials.

In a rural French village, an old man and his only remaining relative cast their covetous eyes on an adjoining vacant property. They need its spring water for growing their flowers, and are dismayed to hear that the man who has inherited it is moving in. They block up the spring and watch as their new neighbour tries to keep his crops watered from wells far afield through the hot summer. Though they see his desperate efforts are breaking his health and his wife and daughter's hearts, they think only of getting the water.

In this, the sequel to Jean de Florette, Manon has grown into a beautiful young shepherdess living in the idyllic Provencal countryside. She plots vengeance on the men who greedily conspired to acquire her father's land years earlier.

Near the end of World War II, General Dietrich von Choltitz receives orders to burn down Paris if it becomes clear the Allies are going to invade, or if he's unable to maintain control of the city. After much contemplation, Choltitz ignores orders, enraging the Germans and giving hope to various resistance factions that the city will be liberated. Choltitz, alongside Swedish diplomat Raoul Nordling, helps a leader organise his forces.

In the wake of their parent's separation, three siblings spend the summer in the south of France with their estranged Grandfather. In less than 24 hours, a clash of generations has occurred between the teenagers and the old man. During this turbulent summer, both generations will be transformed by one another.

A widower maintains a memorial room filled with his late wife's belongings. When fire destroys it, he transforms a chapel into a new shrine to preserve her memory.

A strike at a French sausage factory contributes to the estrangement of a married filmmaker and his reporter wife.

Filmmaker and new media artist Tong Xie’s debut short probes the unease, confusion, and obsession experienced by the body as it crosses the urban physiognomy. Set amidst the shadowy loneliness of Paris at night, Absolutely No Sexual Favors je pense à toi 吾想汝顯 depicts the psychological and corporeal marginality of queer identity and desire through perpetually displaced figures.

Two couple of friends, one very rich, the other almost homeless, decide to go on Holiday. Julie, a single mother, joins them too. Once at seaside, it starts a complicate love cross among them that will involve also a transsexual, a jealous brother, a Latin Lover and another nervous stressed couple. Not to mention about the daughter of one of them that is secretly in Chicago with one of her father's employees... At the end of the summer, all of them will join the same party...

In 1815, young Jacquou lives an idyllic peasant life with his parents in the Périgord region of France. But one day, his childhood happiness is cruelly ended when his father is arrested, after a dispute with the arrogant Count de Nansac. With both his parents dead, Jacquou is adopted by Bonal, a kind priest, under whose influence he grows into an assured, morally upright young man. Now an adult, Jacquou has one desire. To repay the Count de Nansac for the evil he once inflicted on his parents...

Rosa, 15, lives in an oyster-farming family. As her gravely ill father nears death, the support of Adel, her childhood friend, forges a new bond between them. In this fragile in-between, Rosa moves forward and falters…

After a brief and unhappy marriage, Gladys Dale finds work as the companion to Diana Dorset, the daughter of a society matron. Mrs. Dorset also has a spendthrift son, Robert, who makes a number of unwelcome advances to Gladys. However, with the arrival of Edwin Fairfax, Mrs. Dorset's younger brother, Gladys finds a soul mate. But then Fairfax has to report for duty in France (being as World War I is going on) and he leaves.

The deep conversation between a Japanese architect and a French actress forms the basis of this celebrated French film, considered one of the vanguard productions of the French New Wave. Set in Hiroshima after the end of World War II, the couple -- lovers turned friends -- recount, over many hours, previous romances and life experiences. The two intertwine their stories about the past with pondering the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb dropped on the city.

After long absence, a man returns to his hometown only to find his best friend has become an alcoholic.

Dany Longo is red-haired, beautiful, disturbed, passionate--and nearsighted. As she speeds through the south of France in a purloined Thunderbird on an errand for her employer and his wife, no one, including Dany herself, knows where she is headed--or why she is going there.

In 19th-century France, doctor's wife Emma Bovary seeks to escape her dull provincial life through various extramarital affairs and extravagant spending, leading to tragic consequences.

Les gens du Nord

Set in a dugout in Aisne in 1918, a group of British officers, led by the mentally disintegrating young officer Stanhope, variously await their fate.

In the German-occupied Paris, Helene is torn between the love for her boyfriend Jean, working for the resistance and the German administrator Bergmann, who will do anything to gain her affection.

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?