Second Skin takes an intimate look at three sets of computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by online virtual worlds. An emerging genre of computer software called Massively Multiplayer Online games, or MMOs, allows millions of users to interact simultaneously in virtual spaces. Of the 50 million players worldwide, 50 percent consider themselves addicted.
Two professional European gamers navigate the exploding world of electronic sports. Packed with youthful ambition and impeded by reality, the ProGamers struggle to thrive in the fledgling industry of eSports.
Hélène Berr, une jeune fille dans Paris occupé
11-year-old gaming enthusiast Hedvig finds her life turned upside down when she is forced to replace her father as the town’s superhero much earlier than expected. But Hedvig is no superhero, and the challenges are far greater than her coaching father anticipated.
July 2006. Another war breaks out in Lebanon. The directors decide to follow a movie star, Catherine Deneuve and a friend, actor and artist Rabih Mroue;, on the roads of South Lebanon. Together, they will drive through the regions devastated by the conflict. It is the beginning of an unpredictable, unexpected adventure...
For ten years, Raymond Depardon has followed the lives of farmer living in the mountain ranges. He allows us to enter their farms with astounding naturalness. This moving film speaks, with great serenity, of our roots and of the future of the people who work on the land. This the last part of Depardon's triptych "Profils paysans" about what it is like to be a farmer today in an isolated highland area in France. "La vie moderne" examines what has become of the persons he has followed for ten years, while featuring younger people who try to farm or raise cattle or poultry, come hell or high water.
An intimate reflection on life in the digital age and Seán McLoughlin's journey through the highest highs - chanting crowds, sold out shows, and marriage proposals - and lowest lows - grappling with loneliness in the harsh Irish winter - and the life and wonder in between.
The film tells the story of the Chernobyl accident through a mosaic of unique personal testimonies of its participants. The experiences of the difficult past and the sad results of the present recreate the full picture of the accident 30 years later.
Jean Gabin, le dernier des géants
The first of a documentary serie about rural France.
Second documentary of a trilogy produced on the long term (together with Profils paysans: l'approche (2001) and Profils paysans: La vie moderne (2008)), showing the simple lives of farmers in contemporary Southern France.
Taking an investigative look into the legal battles of the global superstar. Close friends, former staff and researchers paint an intimate portrait of Jackson's complicated world and put allegations of sexual abuse under the microscope. The film defends American singer Michael Jackson against allegations of child sexual abuse made in the documentary Leaving Neverland.
At nearly 30 years old, Pauline left her stressful life in Paris and started walking with nothing but her backpack, on the path to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Embarking on a four month long journey, she traveled over 2000 kilometers on foot from her native town of Strasbourg, France, meeting pilgrims from across the world along the road and asking them what made them go on this adventure. Whether it was a desire to reconnect with their inner selves, a desire to challenge themselves, or even as a spiritual quest : every path is unique. This documentary discusses a generation of pilgrims and their needs to review their everyday habits, to discover the unknown and experiencing the magic of life.
The Hugo's Brain is a French documentary-drama about autism. The documentary crosses authentic autistic stories with a fiction story about the life of an autistic (Hugo), from childhood to adulthood, portraying his difficulties and his handicap.
Women who fought back against Harvey Weinstein tell their stories.
From time immemorial, the Bretons have fought many battles to safeguard their culture, rich in language, music and dance. However, Brittany was for a long time a forgotten land, neglected by the Republic which forbade its language. From the 1960s onwards, the agricultural revolution turned peasant life upside down. Its culture, which had long been supported by Catholic priests, was emancipated in the seventies, carried by a new breath of air that accompanied the Breton angers. The youth then reappropriated their language and culture. From the long years of relegation to their great anger, the Bretons have written a fascinating saga since the end of the 19th century.
Dancing Plague, a GTA V mod, flips the script. Holding H key forces male NPCs to dance uncontrollably, revealing the game's biased animations where female characters (often sex workers) have the flashiest moves. This disrupts the game's gender roles, making masculinity both playful and challenged. Interestingly, female characters ignore the male dance frenzy. This is a humorous critique of the game's gender politics. The mod's soundtrack, by Azu Tiwaline, blends electronic music with trance traditions, deepening the critique and adding an immersive ritualistic feel.
Ireland, June 1944. The crucial decision about the right time to start Operation Overlord on D-Day comes to depend on the readings taken by Maureen Flavin, a young girl who works at a post office, used as a weather station, in Blacksod, in County Mayo, the westernmost promontory of Europe, far from the many lands devastated by the iron storms of World War II.
In early 2012, Angela Washko founded “The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft” as a performative intervention within the often misogynistic environment of World of Warcraft (WoW), one of the most popular multiplayer, role-playing games. Instead of continuing to follow the quest structure of the game (killing dragons, getting better equipment, joining more competitive guilds, etc.) and while performing as “The Council" Washko facilitates discussions with players inside the game about the ways in which the community therein addresses women and how players respond to the term “FEMINISM.” Washko is interested in the impulse of the community/player-base to create a somewhat oppressive, misogynistic space for women within a physical environment that is otherwise accessible and inviting.
Between the end of the Second World War and the abolition of the "offence of homosexuality" in 1982, 10,000 sentences were handed down in France. Sentences in correctional courts, fines and sometimes imprisonment, the convictions were mainly against men. The last witnesses of this period speak out and tell of four decades of clandestine life, just before the tragedy of AIDS.