Olivier is a real estate agent so broke he camps out in the apartments he is supposed to be selling. The death of his mother brings along many surprises, including a very unexpected inheritance: a run-down building on the outskirts of Paris! Faith renewed, Olivier is going to be able to pay long overdue child support, rebuild his relationship with his daughter, help his dad out and square up with his ex-wife. His hopes die out when he sees the building: it is completely run down, filthy, a burden rather than the life raft he needed. Moreover, an old woman, Liliane, is a squatter on the top floor, and he can’t flip the place with her around.Read More »
France
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Shira Geffen & Etgar Keret – L’agent immobilier (2019)
2011-2020ComedyEtgar KeretFantasyFranceShira Geffen -
Georges Franju – En passant par la Lorraine (1950)
Georges Franju1941-1950DocumentaryFranceTVThis Government-commissioned documentary was intended to reflect the modernisation of French industry. However, in Franju’s hands it became an ode to fire and a fascinating portrayal of industrial architecture.Read More »
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Jean-Pierre Melville – Les enfants terribles (1950)
Jean-Pierre Melville1941-1950ArthouseDramaFranceQueer Cinema(s)The dangerously obsessive relationship between a psychologically manipulative brother and sister who isolate themselves and draw others into their mind games.Read More »
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Louis Feuillade – Judex (1916)
Louis Feuillade1911-1920DramaFranceSilentThe Birth of CinemaA twelve part serial following the adventures of the masked vigilante Judex as he fights against criminals led by the corrupt banker Favrauxom.Read More »
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Maurice de Canonge – Grisou AKA Les hommes sans soleil (1938)
1931-1940DramaFranceMaurice de CanongeSynopsis:
Femme fatale Madeleine Robinson is married to Raymond Aimos, a coal miner with a face like a pickled walnut and a libido to match. She wants some action, and what she can’t get from her impotent husband, she looks for elsewhere, first with his best friend Pierre Brasseur, then with his boss Lucien Gallas, who is also dating Brasseur’s kid sister Odette Joyeux.Read More » -
Claude Autant-Lara – La Traversée de Paris AKA Pigs Across Paris AKA Four Bags Full (1956)
Claude Autant-Lara1951-1960DramaFranceTwo men, a painter and a poor guy have to cross over Paris by night during world war II and nazi occupation to deliver black market meat. As they walk along dark parisian streets they encounter various characters and adventures.Read More »
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Claude Autant-Lara – Sylvie et le fantôme AKA Sylvia and the Ghost (1946)
Claude Autant-Lara1941-1950FantasyFilm BlancFranceSynopsis:
Claude Autant-Lara’s literally haunting romantic tale Sylvia and the Phantom stars Odette Joyeaux as Sylvia, an imaginative young girl who lives in an old French castle. Fascinated by a portrait of the lover of her deceased grandmother, Sylvia fantasizes about having a romance with the lover’s ghost. On Sylvia’s 16th birthday, her father decides to amuse the girl by having the “ghost” make an appearance, and to that end engages the services of three men–a valet, a ham actor and a burglar–to impersonate the wraith. Though confused by the fact that the ghost seemingly has three distinct personalities, Sylvia nonetheless falls in love with the burglar, the most handsome of the trio. Disillusioned upon learning of her father’s subterfuge, Sylvia is unfortunately unresponsive when the real ghost (poignantly enacted by comedian Jacques Tati) makes a surprise appearance. Unfairly lambasted by American critics as “worthless,” Sylvia and the Phantom has since taken its place in cinema history as one of Claude Autant-Lara’s most beguiling works. The film was adapted from a play by Alfred Adam.Read More » -
Gil J. Wolman – L’Anticoncept (1952)
1951-1960ExperimentalFranceGil J. WolmanAn imageless film, The Anticoncept was first screened on 11 February 1952 at the cinema club “Avant-Garde 52,” where it was projected upon a large white weather balloon.
It consisted of blank illumination accompanied by a staccato spoken soundtrack. The film was banned by the French censors on 2 April 1952—when the Lettrists visited the Cannes Film Festival the following month, they were forced to restrict the audience to journalists only. The text of the soundtrack was published in the sole issue of the Lettrist journal Ion (1952; reprinted Jean-Paul Rocher, 1999)Read More » -
Claudine Eizykman & Dominique Avron & Guy Fihman & Jean-François Lyotard – L’autre scène (1972)
Claudine Eizykman1971-1980Dominique AvronExperimentalFranceGuy FihmanJean-François LyotardShort FilmIn L’Autre Scène, the images and the sound material try to manifest the mechanism of an advertisement around the blade.Read More »