Renan Pollès

A Very Very Beautiful Love Story

Dorothée and Nicolas fall in love at first sight. Together, they’re going to live a very beautiful love story... they know it. But life always finds a way to compromise the best resolutions, the best script, and nothing will happen as expected. Nicolas and Dorothée will be carried into a stormy comedy as crazy as their passion for each other…

Crime Is Our Business

Loosely based on "4.50 from Paddington" by Agatha Christie.

Les vacances de Clémence

In Saint-Nazaire in 1967, a hotbed of workers' struggles, Clémence, 26, is married to a young worker, Gérard. Like many women of her generation, she does not work and takes care of her two children. But she longs for a different life while Gérard confuses the happiness of his family with the acquisition of household appliances. Trained by an old friend, Agnès, in family planning meetings, Clémence will meet a young philosophy teacher, Jérôme. For him, she will abandon her husband and her children, and try to live the utopia of a life of total freedom. Blinded by his pain, a stranger to his wife's questioning, Gérard will have to become aware of the upheavals that will overwhelm society a few months later. Life will never be the same again.

Towards Zero

Inviting the ex-wife to a family reunion when the none-too-secure new wife will be there hardly seems to be a recipe for success, and true to form, bodies have begun to stack up by the end of this cinematic update of a classic Agatha Christie tale. Luckily for the extended clan gathered at a sumptuous waterfront estate in Northern France, Inspector Martin Bataille is on hand to find out not only "who done it" but why.

The Big Apartment

Francesca and her husband, Martin, are dreamers. They live a carefree existence oblivious to the increasingly hostile world closing in on them. Their huge Parisian apartment is a refuge for an array of colorful characters in need of a roof over their heads and in particular for Adrien, a filmmaker who turns their home into his office, studio and love-nest. When their mean landlady tries to evict them all and Martin succumbs to the charms of a beautiful vamp, Francesca comes up with some original and entertaining solutions in the defense of her and everybody else's happiness.

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

The Beresfords investigate mysterious deaths at an old people's home.

Weep No More, My Lady

When demanding actress Leila is found drowned there are numerous suspects but the main suspect is her husband Ted. Adapted from the novel by Mary Higgins Clark.

Firing Squad

Based on the controversial case of Pvt. Joseph Pringle, a Canadian soldier convicted of murder in Italy in 1945 and executed by firing squad.

Maman

Lulu is released from prison. Determined to fulfill her dream, find her kids, those of her best friend who remained locked up and go very far. The former inmate will do everything to carry out the "heist" that will get her the money.

The Husbands, the Wives, the Lovers

In the summer holidays, a group of women stay behind in Paris whilst their husbands and children take a vacation on the sunny Island of Ré. The women – wives, frustrated spinsters and adolescents – profit from their new-found freedom to sort out their love lives and the men indulge their earthy passions with no less enthusiasm. Only the children seems capable of rising above this infantile summer madness...

Blessure

A young rock singer, Morgan, falls in love with the pretty Julie. But Dimitri, Julie's "ex", doesn't see it that way.

Mescht und Schnee

If, one evening, a village drinker abuses of schnapps to the point of risking a heart attack, the traditional remedy is to bury him up to his neck in manure and leave him there until morning. The organic heat causes an intense elimination of sweat, and the ammonia brings the patient back to consciousness. The "where am I" that follows and the short-circuiting, in the ethylic haze, of the dazzle of the first sun on the snow and the disgust of finding oneself in manure: this is the crucial moment of the borderline experience portrayed in the film. Death and resurrection, steeped not in mystery but in elementary chemistry, which, through its excess, opens the mind to the terrible presence of reality. A tribute to the strong primal character of the Alsatian in his stubborn resistance to all worldly things, and his fierce anchoring to the world.

Le voyage

The emotional interplay between an arguing couple, in love but not happy with their relationship, is meant to be the sustaining force in this crime drama with little other action. Thomas (Christophe Malavoy) has been blackmailed into carrying a shipment of explosives in his Peugeot to Egypt, where the devices will be forwarded to guerrillas on Cyprus. He brings his lover Veronique (Victoria Abril) along for the dangerous ride from Switzerland to the south, knowing the explosives can be easily detonated by accident and enemy agents as well as government agents are out to capture him. Both protagonists have a short fuse themselves, and as they separate and then come back together, their final destination looms ever closer in more ways than one.

Half a Life

Michel Recanati was a militant leader in the May, 1968 riots in Paris, organizing many groups to meet, discuss, and act on leftist principles both before and after the disturbances. He was imprisoned for a short while in 1973. Disillusioned after the failure of the demonstrations and the death of the only woman he had loved, his life seems to have changed from a period of hope and activism to one of bottomless despair. His friend, Romain Goupil wrote and directed this biographical documentary. Death at 30 received the 1982 Cannes Film Festival's Golden Camera Award for "Best First Feature-Length Film."

The Ones That Got Away

In a train compartment, 6 people who do not know each other tell the story of their troubles in love. Only one of those seems to be a positive one.

Heart to Heart

The independently-minded daughter of lower-middle class French shopkeepers, Brigitte, one of three sisters, refused to marry the father of her child when she became pregnant. In this film, she reminisces about her family life beginning when she was about five years old, up to the present when she is in her early 20s. Of her two sisters, one has a nervous breakdown and the other one becomes something of a baby factory. Colorful anecdotes of her eventful life lend additional depth to her insights.

Bastien, Bastienne

Catherine (Juliet Berto) is the temporary head of the family while her husband, whom she loathes, is away fighting in the war. Her widowed sister-in-law Suzanne (Anna Prucnal) lives with her, and after awhile it becomes apparent that Catherine loathes her as well. The children in the house are all boys -- Catherine has two sons, twelve and thirteen, and Suzanne also has a twelve-year old. While the relationship between Suzanne and Catherine is coming to a head, Catherine is having an affair with an army officer, and the boys in the family are planning a musical performance for everyone. The crescendo may be barely audible at the beginning, but it builds up to a tragedy at the end.

The Pig

In the French countryside it's the day for peasants to kill a big fat pig. The slaughter goes on for a great part of the day as they work to store 140kg worth of meat.

Dérive 'Le naufrage de Vénus'

Botticelli's Venus emerges from the waters, that of Yvan Lagrange, is she shipwrecked?...

The Vertical Smile

A kaleidoscope of images from history populate this skillfully animated French feature. The story concerns a history professor whose ideas about human history cause him distress. Amid a flurry of newsreel-type images, Joan of Arc's trial is shown. Another theme which emerges is of two ages (in the far past and far future) in which naked humans fight one another with animalistic aggression.

The Year 01

The film narrates a utopian abandonment, consensual and festive of the market economy and high productivity. The population decides on a number of resolutions beginning with "We stop everything" and the second "After a total downtime will be revived-reluctantly-that the services and products including lack will prove intolerable. Probably: water to drink, electricity for reading at night, the TSF to say "This is not the end of the world, this is an 01, and now a page of Celestial Mechanics". The implementation of these resolutions is the first day of a new era, Year 01. The Year 01 is emblematic of the challenge of the 1970s and covers such diverse topics as ecology, negation of authority, free love, communal living, rejection of private property and labor.

Quelques larmes de sang

Family, religion, food, sex, death. All the obsessions of Yvan Lagrange in one film.

What a Flash!

The producers of this French film took approximately 100 people, put them on a soundstage and had them improvise this film based on the premise that they are on a spaceship escaping from the dictators of earth and only have a few days to live. Improvisation is a dangerous art-form; unprepared amateurs invariably come up with gross caricatures when challenged to improvise. The actors' choices in this film include an allegorical pageant of the life of Jesus, a marriage, an orgy, and some genuinely affectionate moments. Nonetheless, as an experimental effort in large-group improvisation, the film is instructive. - Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Requiem for a Vampire

Two girls on the run get lost in the French countryside, and wind up in a haunted chateau occupied by an ailing vampire and his servants.

The Shiver of the Vampires

A young, honeymooning couple stop for the night at an ancient castle. Unbeknownst to them, the castle is home to a horde of vampires who have their own plans for the couple.

La peau dure

In a snow-covered Juras, two elderly couples talk about their past, one dealing lightly with death, the other with Christian mysticism.

Le Bel émoi de mai

Paris, may 1968. In the streets, on the barricades, an insurrection of poetry.

Les pieds dans les nuages (et la tête dans la lune)

A short film by Louis Skorecki.

Cérémonie pour une victoire

From the sculpture of Jean-Robert Ipoustéguy.