Patrick, who has had diabetes for 25 years and is treated with insulin, is gradually losing his sight. He has agreed to laser treatment as the only alternative to total blindness, a treatment that destroys almost the entire retina, leaving only central vision. For three years, the director followed him in his daily life, walking towards darkness, where he learns day by day to touch, listen, guess, feel, and resist. The camera narrows its field of view over time to "see" as Patrick does.
On the occasion of his 80th birthday, an intimate documentary follows the illustrious pianist and great French jazz musician, Alain Jean-Marie from Guadeloupe, on a recent trip to Cuba. He talks about his career, his adolescence, and his youth in Guadeloupe, where he was rocked and deeply influenced by Cuban music. Director Bertrand Fèvre followed this now essential artist in Havana, to be discovered or rediscovered through a film set to jazz.
A biographical film featuring the music and times of Bill Evans with interviews from Tony Bennett, Jack Dejohnette, Billy Taylor, Paul Motian, Jon Hendricks, Orin Keepnews, Bobby Brookmeyer, Pat Evans and more, including family and friends who knew Bill Evans well.
Priya, an exceptional yet obsessive pianist at Berklee School of Music, struggles to meet the demands of her professor’s unorthodox senior showcase assignment: to compose a piece that encapsulates her greatest fear.
Born on a sharecropping plantation in Northern Florida, Ray Charles went blind at seven. Inspired by a fiercely independent mom who insisted he make his own way, He found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered coupling gospel and country together.
Filmed and edited entirely in isolation, Living in Fear is an educational and inspiring documentary directed by myself, Stephanie Castelete-Tyrrell, a disabled filmmaker as I capture the fears and struggles disabled people faced before the government implemented the lockdown on the 23rd March 2020. Thousands of people with disabilities were left in the dark and had to make the call weeks before to lockdown as it was inevitable that we would die if we caught the virus. Food was impossible to access because we couldn't go out or get delivery slots, and even if we did panic buyers made it impossible to get the items we desperately needed. We were truly isolated, unable to have family and friends visit. Having carers coming in and out of the house was risky and many disabled people felt that having basic care was putting their lives at risk.
In an attempt to represent reality, the boundary between life and art blurs between fragmentary images of someone and the praxis of an essay film.
TIME TO DIE
Tove Ditlevsen – jeg har altid villet alting
In this intimate portrait addressed directly to Hélène Hazera, filmmaker Judith Abitbol revisits a key figure of France’s countercultures from the late 1960s to the 1990s. A member of the Gazolines and the FHAR (Homosexual Front for Revolutionary Action), Hazera was a tireless LGBTQ activist who founded Act Up’s Trans and AIDS commissions—one of her proudest achievements. Her true victory, however, was becoming the first transgender journalist at a major national newspaper (Libération), and later a producer at Radio France and France TV. Through her story, Abitbol reconnects with the insurrectionary spirit and creative chaos of those decades—an era when French culture was shaken by radical imagination, humor, and defiance. The film celebrates these modern Antigones who dared to live their desires beyond the reach of any law.
Le Dernier Voyage de Patrick Edlinger
When Ines died, she left a very particular legacy, 10 books that read 'For my children'; it was the story of her life. Marked by a youth idyllic love, Ines was forced to marry a violent and womanizer man with whom she had 20 children. In the 50s, she managed to get divorce and 20 years after her death, Luisa, great-granddaughter of INES, reads, rescues and makes visible her history.
Europe in lockdown. Is the corona virus still a threat to the health systems of different nations? Or is it the measures that choke people off? What is the mood like among our neighbors? In this documentary we set off in January 2021. Across Europe. We report from 10 different European countries.
Peels back the curtain on the two-week, claustrophobic nightmare when passengers and crew members boarded the luxury Diamond Princess cruise ship in January of 2020, they had no idea that the deadly novel coronavirus boarded the ship with them, turning the floating paradise into their worst nightmare.
A French documentary on how Covid-19 affected Hollywood and the cinema industry in the United States.
In turn, the medical community has been affected by the post #metoo movement denouncing sexual violence against women. It was about time. Assaults and rapes perpetrated behind closed doors in doctors' offices have gone unpunished for too long. For a victim, reporting them is almost as difficult as recounting incidents of incest. And the medical councils, which are mainly made up of men, have long turned a deaf ear to patients' complaints. When cases are brought before the courts, the justice system also struggles to prosecute these rapists. Recently, practices and names have been made public, complaints are multiplying, and women are daring to speak out. Could this be the end of complacency towards these criminals in white coats?
Alix left his native island, Martinique, and its musical culture, to study opera singing in Paris. Portrait of a young man who now embraces all his singularities: his rare countertenor voice, his kohl and his done nails. He works hard to realize his dream of becoming a professional artist.
This documentary looks back on a career of a woman who, very early on, refused to accept the roles assigned to her. In the 1980s, while others were trying to please, she wrote "Les hommes préfèrent les grosses" (Men Prefer Fat Women), a manifesto ahead of its time, funny, feminist, and blunt. Later, with "Gazon maudit" (Damned Grass), she tackled homosexuality with a freedom that is still shocking today.
Loïc Léry, du flingue au stylo
Eric Escoffier, la Fureur de Vivre