France

  • Alain Resnais – Toute la Memoire du Monde aka All the Memory of the World (1956)

    1951-1960Alain ResnaisArchitectureDocumentaryFranceShort Film

    With Toute la mémoire du monde, Resnais is setting the basis of his cinematographic project about places of memory. Within 20 minutes, Resnais is surgically, methodically analyzing the national library of France. With an hyperactive camera, he’s sneaking, he’s smelling, he’s feeling this huge building.Read More »

  • Emmanuel Gras – Bovines (2011)

    2011-2020DocumentaryEmmanuel GrasFrancePhilosophy

    Synopsis :
    In the fields, we see them, extended on the grass or grazing peacefully. Large placid beasts that we thought we knew because they are livestock. Lions, gorillas, bears have our attention, but has anyone ever really looked at the cows? Has asked what they were doing with their days? What do they do when a storm passes? When the sun comes back? What do they think when they stand motionless, seemingly contemplating the void? But, in fact, do they think? The rhythm of the animal, in the middle of a herd, “Bovines” chronicles the life of cows, true.Read More »

  • Jean Epstein – L’auberge rouge AKA The Red Inn (1923)

    1921-1930DramaFranceJean EpsteinSilent

    Based on the story by Honoré de Balzac. Caught in a storm, two young doctors book into an inn for the night and find themselves sharing a room with a Dutch diamond merchant. During the night Prosper steals from the merchant, but when he awakes in the morning he finds the merchant dead and his friend gone. When the stolen property is found on him he is arrested for the crime and executed. 25 years later the innkeeper’s daughter relates the tale to a traveler, who in turn later relates it at a dinner party. At that party is Frederic Taillefer, the missing friend and murderer.Read More »

  • Rose Lowder – Bouquet d’Images (1978-1995)

    ArthouseExperimentalFranceRose LowderUSA

    After training as a paintor and sculptor in artist’s studios and art schools in Lima (The Art Center, La Escuela de Bellas Artes) and in London (Regent Street Polytechnic, Chelsea School of Art), Rose LOWDER worked in London as an artist while earning a living in the film industry as an editor. From 1977 onwards she concentrated on studying the visual aspect of the cinematographic process, and was encouraged by Jean Rouch and his staff at the University de Paris X to present some of her work as a thesis under the title The experimental film as an instrument towards visual research (1987).Since 1977 Lowder has been active programming rarely shown films. In order to make this body of work available to a wider public, she constituted a collection of films and paper documents, The Experimental Film Archive of Avignon (1981). Since 1996 Lowder is also associate professor at the University de Paris I.Read More »

  • Jan Kounen – 99 francs (2007)

    2001-2010ComedyDramaFranceJan Kounen

    A first person diatribe against modern consumerist society as seen through the eyes of a cynical advertising executive whose efforts to get fired from his job backfire as he keeps getting promoted.Read More »

  • Claude Miller – Thérèse Desqueyroux (2012)

    2011-2020Claude MillerDramaFrance

    The unhappily married woman struggles to break free from social pressures and her boring suburban setting.Read More »

  • Claude Lelouch – La Vie, l’amour, la mort aka Life, Love, Death (1969)

    Drama1961-1970Claude LelouchCrimeFrance

    Review Summary
    The title Life Love Death (originally La Vie, L’amour, la Mort) pretty much runs the gamut of the subject matter which normally appeals to French filmmaker Claude Lelouch. Awaiting execution for murder, Souad Amidou reflects on the events leading up to this sorry contingency. It seems that Amidou can only cohabit with prostitutes, thus he seeks out satisfaction in all the side streets of Europe. Disturbed by a whore’s insults when he was unable to perform, Amidou goes completely off the deep end and begins cutting a swath of death from one end of Spain to another. Lelouch’s principal stylistic decision in Life Love and Death is to draw as many parallels as possible between sex and bullfighting. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideRead More »

  • Georges Méliès – Le monstre aka The Monster (1903)

    1901-1910FranceGeorges MélièsShort FilmSilentThe Birth of Cinema

    Plot Synopsis:
    An Egyptian prince has lost his beloved wife and he has sought a dervish who dwells at the base of the sphinx. The prince promises him a vast fortune if the dervish will only give him the opportunity of gazing once more upon the features of his wife. The dervish accepts the offer. He brings in from a neighboring tomb the receptacle containing the remains of the princess. He opens it and removes the skeleton, which he places upon the ground close beside him. Then, turning to the moon and raising his arms outstretched toward it, he invokes the moon to give back life to her who is no more. The skeleton begins to move about, becomes animated, and arises. The dervish puts it upon a bench and covers it with a white linen; a masque conceals its ghostly face.Read More »

  • Marcel Ophüls – Faites vos jeux, mesdames AKA Make your Bets, Ladies (1965)

    1961-1970ActionFranceMarcel OphülsThriller

    Synopsis
    Exciting Eddie Constantine outing finds Eddie playing a special agent searching for missing NATO weapons. When he encounters a scientist who has invented a ring that emits a paralysis spray, the hard-boiled spy saves the day with some very Bondian heroics…Read More »

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