Patricia Mazuy

Two women from very different worlds bond over an unlikely connection — both of them have a husband serving time in the same prison — in Visiting Hours, a study of class and economic disparity that avoids certain narrative familiarities while succumbing to others. Veteran French director Patricia Mazuy reunites with her The Kings Daughters (2000) star Isabelle Huppert, who plays a bourgeois wife who takes an interest in Hafsia Herzi’s working-class dry-cleaner, although the reason for her fascination is, intriguingly, never explicitly laid out. The two characters become friends, although both women’s ulterior motives give this uneven but compelling film its tense energy.Read More »

PLOT: When their father dies, the ambitious police officer Guillaume offers the management of the bowling alley he inherited to his outcast half-brother Armand. The inheritance is cursed, and the two men wind up in a world of violence.Read More »

Late 17th Century: Anne de Grandcamp and Lucie de Fontenelle, two little girls from Normandy, arrive at the Saint-Cyr school founded by Madame de Maintenon for educating the daughters of impoverished nobles ruined in wars and making them into free women. Madame de Maintenon is the secret wife of Louis XIV, and empowered by his support, she offers “her” two hundred fifty girls a playful and avant-garde education. Anne and Lucie, two inseparable friends, allow themselves to be carried away by the promise of a bright future. But Maintenon has arrived at the pinnacle of power through scheming and debasing herself and she now fears the fires of hell. She is counting on her model school to atone for her past sins.Read More »

Plot: This brooding, enigmatic story won the 1989 Prix George Sadoul at the Cannes Film Festival, in the category “Un Certain Regard,” which focuses on “smaller” films. In the story, Gerard (Jacques Spiesser) and his wife Annie (Sandrine Bonnaire) have made a nice life for themselves on their farm. That life is disturbed by the arrival of Gerard’s older brother Roland (Jean-François Stévenin) – a brother Annie never knew existed. It gradually becomes clear that both brothers had once negligently set fire to a barn while drunk, inadvertently causing the death of a sleeping wanderer. Roland took all the blame for causing the death, and spent ten years in prison for it. Now he wants Gerard to make those years up to him. Gerard, who up until then had succeeded in putting the incident out of his mind, is now consumed by guilt, and, since he loves both his brother and his wife, doesn’t know what to do about those demands. Not only that, but he is a little bit afraid of Roland. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie GuideRead More »

Synopsis / Review from CINEUROPA:

With only four feature films to her name over the past 30 years and a propensity to always go where you don’t expect, from the rural drama of Peaux de vaches (discovered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 1989) to high-level horse riding in Of Women and Horses [+] (screened on the Piazza Grande at Locarno in 2011) and Mme de Maintenon’s ruthless gynaecium at the end of the seventeenth century in The King’s Daughters (also screened in the Un Certain Regard section in 2000 and nominated for a César Award for Best Film). Read More »

ALL THE BOYS AND GIRLS IN THEIR TIME is a series of films
commissioned by the French-German TV station Arte. Ten directors were
asked to participate by making a movie about their teenage years. Each
film had to include at least one party scene which highlighted the music
of the time. TRAVOLTA AND ME, Patricia Mazuy’s entry, transpires in
1978 and (not surprisingly, given the title) takes its inspiration from
U.S. disco and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER.Read More »

A horsewoman in search of a steed. Gracieuse, a farmer’s daughter, is disgusted at the way the horses she trained to the top levels of jumping are taken away from her. She meets the legendary trainer Franz Mann, who now manages a rich landowner’s estate, and with his help starts over in the world of dressage. But just as she feels she has finally found the right horse, she realizes that talent counts for nothing when facing the personal and high financial stakes of the game.Read More »