Pierre Dupouey

As If We Were Catching a Cobra

Focusing on the work of cartoonists in Egypt, Algeria, Syria, and Palestine, this documentary examines how comic strips and caricatures are becoming a vehicle for dissent and a voice for freedom of expression in the Arab world.

Saint-Germain ou La négociation

This is the TV adaptation of a novel by Francis Walder. The scene happens in 1570, during the religions wars between catholics and protestants in France. Both sides are decided for a truth, to enable peaceful negociations of a settlement, which will become the peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the same year. The negociation, lead by Henri de Malassise (Jean Rochefort), and the Earl of Biron for the Catholic side, and Mr. d'Ublé and M. de Mélynes for the protestants side.

Silence... We're Rolling

Malak is a star singer who lives with her mother and her daughter, Loula, in her villa after her divorce. She falls in love with an opportunist called Lam'ey, so her daughter sets out to expose him with the help of her lover, a driver called Nasser, and the director, Ezz-ElDin who deeply loves Malak.

Rembrandt

This French-German-Dutch biopic on the life of 17th century Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn is told in flashbacks from the point-of-view of the aged artist. Soon after establishing his career as a painter in Amsterdam, he marries the radiant Saskia. As he makes a name for himself, he can soon afford to buy a large house by teaching wealthy aristocrats how to paint. However, the couple's happiness is short-lived; Saskia dies soon after bearing their son, Titus. Crushed, van Rijn seeks comfort first in the arms of his maid Geertje and then with his second wife, Hendrickje, who gives birth to a daughter. In spite of his genius, van Rijn's determinedly eccentric behavior alienates the very members of the elite who were paying his bills. At one point, the artist's home and belongings, including many of his paintings, are seized and sold for humiliatingly low prices in a rigged auction.

Le radeau de la Méduse

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.

After Sex

The end of an affair from the woman's point of view.

Vincennes Neuilly

Jérôme and Sophie are "foreigners". They evolve in a world whose rules seem to them as many constraints and adopt unusual behaviors which can disorientate their interlocutors. They say they are brother and sister and many people prefer to believe them and be satisfied with this version for fear of supporting a situation that is too scabrous. Only Olivia accepts to assume the situation. Her taste for derision and her humor allow her to overcome the provocations of the couple and to take an ascendancy on them.

Équipe de nuit

Quentin and André, two brothers who had lost sight for several years, find themselves in the family home, uninhabited since the death of their parents.

Énumérations

In a house half devastated by a cataclysm, men and women take inventory of the sonic rubble of their memory during a musical ceremony.

Bel ragazzo

A young Italian stops at a filling station on the freeway, and having some time to kill, telephones a friend. He recounts his adventures as a gigolo, but in doing so as a sudden awareness causes him to reconsider certain values that had escaped him, bringing him face-to-face with himself.

Histoire du caporal

A quiet French peasant has spent three years as a corporal on the front lines in World War I, and one day he cannot take it anymore and goes AWOL, escaping into the Alps in the southeast of France. He first takes leave of his wife before heading into the mountains and manages to survive in the breathtaking, vast landscape while using all the knowledge and wiles under his command. Even though the area around him is fairly isolated, another deserter arrives on the scene -- but he cannot take the solitude and leaves. As the peasant diligently works at his own survival, the police from the region know he is hiding out somewhere within their jurisdiction, and so his future is anything but secure. This subdued, pacifist film strives for distance rather than emotional involvement, so as to present a pacifist cause as reasonably as possible, but as a consequence, the routine of the deserter's existence verges on a grinding boredom.

House Specialty

Sophie Tatischeff's short film set in the small town of Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre, three decades after its use in her father's film 'Jour de Fête'. The conversation from a typical village bar is transplanted to a patisserie with particularly tempting tartlets: 'No reason for us not to have another' says one habitué; 'no more for me thanks,' says another. 'A shortbread at this time of day?' asks the woman behind the counter.

The Gaze

A couple in a hotel room in Brussels. A painting by Brueghel. In this painting, a mystery.