Bertrand Faivre

Animal Tales of Christmas Magic

In a festive and fairytale atmosphere, animals from around the world are brought together through five poetic and humorous adventures to celebrate Christmas and wintertime. They will learn about the importance of helping each other, being generous and rediscovering the beauty of nature.

The art of being happy

Jean-Yves Machond, a globally unknown and generally unhappy painter, decides one day to change his life. He seeks inspiration in a small Norman town, in order to design a masterpiece that will finally earn him glory and eternal recognition. But his meeting with local artists, from the warm Bagnoule to the skillful Cécile, will somewhat make him deviate from his path, and bring him face to face with his deepest dream: that of simply being a happy man.

A Family

Award-winning French writer Christine Angot goes on a business trip to Strasbourg where her father lived before dying several years ago. It is the city where she met him for the first time at the age of 13, and where he sexually abused her over the following years. His wife and children still live there. Angot takes a camera and knocks on the doors of her family to push them to clarify their attitudes to her father’s crime that stretched over so many years. A cinematographic journey that challenges social norms and family perspectives in dealing with incest.

La Syndicaliste

The true story of Maureen Kearney, the head union representative of a French multinational nuclear powerhouse. She became a whistleblower, denouncing top-secret deals that shook the French nuclear sector. Alone against the world, she fought government ministers and industry leaders, tooth and nail to bring the scandal to light and to defend more than 50,000 jobs.. Her life was turned upside down when she was violently assaulted in her own home... The investigation is carried out under pressure: the subject is sensitive. Suddenly, new elements create doubt in the minds of the investigators. At first a victim, Maureen becomes a suspect.

Tax Me If You Can

Welcome to the enchanted world of capital evasion. The keys to fortune: knowing how to hide, find accomplices and take advantage of all the flaws. The rest of us mere mortals are left with austerity policies and the joy of living in an increasingly unequal world... How far will predators go in this widespread plundering of our economies? How is the political staff complicit? How are we braking? Between Paris and Geneva, Washington and Luxembourg, from Société Générale to HSBC, via Mac Donald, Ikea and Google ... we will track down the circuits of tax evasion and decipher the mechanisms of tax fraud.

For a Fistful of Fries

For several days, a team of police officers (backed by Judge Anne Gruwez, the revelation from their previous So Help Me God) sift through the evidence in a murder case that’s tougher than it appears. Jean Libon and Yves Hinant lead a police investigation unlike anything you’ve ever seen. With every banal turn of events, camaraderie and professionalism go hand in hand as humour meets tragedy and a handful of fries, a Tupperware container and St. Rita heighten the suspense. Hilariously scathing, yet filled with tenderness.

The Velvet Queen

High up on the Tibetan plateau. Amongst unexplored and inaccessible valleys lies one of the last sanctuaries of the wild world, where rare and undiscovered fauna lives. Vincent Munier, one of the world’s most renowned wildlife photographers takes the adventurer and novelist Sylvain Tesson (In the Forest of Siberia) with him on his latest mission. For several weeks, they’ll explore these valleys searching for unique animals and try to spot the snow leopard, one of the rarest and most difficult big cats to approach.

The Monopoly of Violence

As anger and resentment grow in the face of social inequalities, many citizens-led protests are being repressed with an ever-increasing violence. In this documentary, David Dufresne gathers a panel of citizens to question, exchange and confront their views on the social order and the legitimacy of the use of force by the State.

Perfect 10

14-year-old Leigh lives with her neglectful father on the outskirts of Brighton. She’s a talented gymnast, training hard for her first competition. When an older half-brother appears at her house one night, Leigh’s lonely existence is altered.

Little Joe

Alice, a single mother who is more dedicated to her work as a genetic engineer than to her teenage son Joe, develops a new variety of flower that is supposed to have the ability to make its owner happy thanks to its special chemical properties.

Life Beyond Me

It's been four years since Sylvie's son Felipe was abducted by his father Pablo after their divorce. Having been let down by the French officials who had succeeded in tracking both them down, only to let them escape again, Sylvie has now decided to take matters into her own hands.

A Little Chaos

A landscape gardener is hired by famous architect Le Nôtre to construct the grand gardens at the palace of Versailles. As the two work on the palace, they find themselves drawn to each other and are thrown into rivalries within the court of King Louis XIV.

Le Week-End

Nick and Meg Burrows return to Paris, the city where they honeymooned, to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary and rediscover some romance in their long-lived marriage. The film follows the couple as long-established tensions in their marriage break out in humorous and often painful ways.

The Odyssey

Hackney-born Kapadia combines epic aerial images and the voices of Londoners to chart the city's turbulent yet inspiring journey from 2005 to the 2012 Olympics.

Late Bloomers

Late Bloomers stars Isabella Rossellini and William Hurt as a married couple pulled apart by the threat of old age. Each reacts in a different way: Hurt’s distinguished architect chases after his glory days, while Rossellini’s housewife installs handrails about the house.

Lily Sometimes

After the death of her mother, a woman returns home to care for her sister.

Farewell

An intricate thriller about an ordinary man thrust into the biggest theft of Soviet information of the Cold War. Right after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. A French businessman based in Moscow, Pierre Froment, makes an unlikely connection with Grigoriev, a senior KGB officer disenchanted with what the Communist ideal has become under Brezhnev. Grigoriev begins passing Froment highly sensitive information about the Soviet spy network in the US.

Spy(ies)

In London, an airport baggage handler is forced by French and British intelligence agents to seduce the wife of a businessman with ties to Syrian terrorists.

Far North

In the arctic, as Saiva is being born, a shaman declares that she is evil and will bring harm to all who become involved with her. Saiva is cast out of her tribe of herders and grows up to live a nomadic existence with Anja, a young woman she adopts as an infant. Then Loki, an injured and starving soldier, stumbles into their isolated lives. The women nurse him back to health, but treachery, violence and doom await them all.

Total Western

After a drug deal gone wrong, Bédé goes into hiding in the countryside at a reformative school for criminal youth. His location is found out, and he and the pupils have to protect themselves with whatever means they have.

Unmade Beds

Axl wants to find his long-lost father and rediscover his past. Vera just wants to forget hers as she tries to move on from heartbreak. Their stories come together in the melting-pot of 21st century London.

My Greatest Escape

Michel Vaujour, former thief and mobster, always chose making a break for freedom over a life behind bars, adventure over a life of submission. He has spent 27 years in prison, 17 of those in solitary confinement. He succeeded in carrying out amazing escapes with toy guns, worthy of a Hollywood script, including a daring helicopter breakout from the roof of a jail. He was finally released on parole in 2003. This documentary is an uplifting and universal story of a remarkable transformation. Michel Vaujour's greatest escape was not from jail but from himself. The liberation of the mind and ultimately, the soul. His isolation forced him to continuously confront himself. The reward has been self-enlightenment.

Julia

An alcoholic becomes involved in a fellow A.A. member's plan to kidnap her young son from the boy's wealthy grandfather.

Burnt Out

François Durrieux, a man in his forties, married to Clémence and father of Benjamin, has been employed for years by the firm DSBO. In order not to lose his job, he always submits to his boss's demands whether it means working after office hours, canceling planned holidays or harming his family life. However, when one night, Simon Lacaze, his best friend and colleague, commits suicide just after being fired ignominiously, François rebels...

Joyeux Noel

France, 1914, during World War I. On Christmas Eve, an extraordinary event takes place in the bloody no man's land that the French and the Scots dispute with the Germans…

Isolation

On a remote Irish farm, five people become unwilling participants in an experiment that goes nightmarishly wrong.

The Devils

The story of the struggle of an autistic girl and her brother trying to survive without their parents.

The Warrior

In feudal India, a warrior who renounces his role as the longtime enforcer to a local lord becomes the prey in a murderous hunt through the Himalayan mountains.

Ratcatcher

James Gillespie is 12 years old. The world he knew is changing. Haunted by a secret, he has become a stranger in his own family. He is drawn to the canal where he creates a world of his own. He finds an awkward tenderness with Margaret Anne, a vulnerable 14 year old expressing a need for love in all the wrong ways, and befriends Kenny, who possesses an unusual innocence in spite of the harsh surroundings.

The Journey to Paris

Shy and still living with his mother, a highway cashier one day decides to finally live his craziest dream: to visit Paris.

Still Waters Run Deep

Despite his lifelong efforts, Jean is one of those unfortunate men who can never understand women. This arty, metaphorical French film presents three examples of Jean's difficulties over the course of his long life. Each of the three episodes takes place beside the same river. He is first seen as a small boy playing on the river banks with the teenage girl he secretly loves. She mischievously promises to tell him her darkest secret if only he will perform a certain task for her. The story then takes a more surreal turn as a now-grown Jean, once again beside the river, toys with a beautiful woman at a picnic. She wants a commitment from him, but wily Jean is unwilling to satisfy her. In the final segment, Jean has become an old man and is once again deeply in love.

Plaisir d'offrir

It is the story of Pierre, a considerate husband who is vaguely obsessional and a touch sensitive. It is also the story of Claire, a strong-minded woman who loves literature and is at times obsessed with beards.