French films

It's early summer and Agathe is back in France, at home in Montreuil. She has to get over her husband's death and return to her work as a film director. The unexpected arrival at her house of a couple of Icelanders, a sea lion and a neighbour that she has always desired yet never vanquished will give Agathe the strength to get her life back on track...

A well known radio talk show host lives as a recluse during the day, until she found her real mother.

Benjamin is going to become a great doctor, he is sure of it. But his first experience as junior doctor in his father's service, the Professor Barois, does not turn out the way he hoped it would. Benjamin will be brutally confronted with his own limits, his fears, those of his patients, families, doctors and the staff.

Hibat Tabib and his wife Feresteh live in a small village in the South of Iran. They are young, full of life, idealistic and militate actively for democracy. They are not afraid to rise against two successive despots, the Shah first, and later on the Ayatollah Khomeini. In 1984, they are forced to flee their country with their son. After a long, difficult and dangerous journey they end up reaching France. They settle down in the Île-de-France region where, after a period of adjustment, they manage to integrate into the French social fabric, particularly by getting involved in the local community.

Three men, three women, opposites, possibilities, and tastes. Castella owns a industrial steel barrel plant in Rouen; Bruno is his flute-playing driver, Franck is his temporary bodyguard while he negotiates a contract with Iranians, his wife Angélique does frou-frou interior decorating and loves her dog. The conventional Castella hires a forty-year-old actress, Clara, to tutor him in English, and he finds her and her Bohemian lifestyle fascinating. Is this love? What would she say if he declared himself? Through Bruno, Franck meets Manie, a barmaid who deals hash. They begin an affair. Are they in love? They joke about marriage. As the women hold back, the men must make decisions.

A father-to-be and his very pregnant wife are invited for dinner by his sister and his brother-in-law. The setting is an upper-middle-class apartment in Paris. When the expecting parents reveal they intend to name their son "Adolphe", everyone else at the dinner is speechless. The situation eventually gets out of hand, when no one can come to an understanding, and everyone starts unearthing old rivalries and unspoken issues.

Annie, Jean, Claude, Albert and Jeanne have been friends for over forty years. But they are growing old and old age tends to be synonymous with reduced autonomy, loss of memory, illness, retirement home and, worst of all, separation. One day, one of the five friends suggests to say no to isolation and loneliness: what if they lived together?

This feature is a classic first-love and coming-of-age story set in the exciting political context of 1981.

Bahia Benmahmoud, a free-spirited young woman, has a particular way of seeing political engagement, as she doesn't hesitate to sleep with those who don't agree with her to convert them to her cause - which is a lot of people, as all right-leaning people are concerned. Generally, it works pretty well. Until the day she meets Arthur Martin, a discreet forty-something who doesn't like taking risks. She imagines that with a name like that, he's got to be slightly fascist. But names are deceitful and appearances deceiving...

Jessica, raised by her grandmother, comes to Paris and gets a job at a bar across from a performance complex where a play, a concert, and an art auction will occur the same evening. It's a world in flux: the play's star wants off a popular TV soap that's made her rich, and she covets the lead in a film about de Beauvoir and Sartre; the pianist hates the concert circuit, but his wife who's his manager may leave him if he quits; a self-made widower with a girlfriend less than half his age is selling his collection of modern art - his son, a professor, objects to his father's love life. The stage manager at the complex is resigning after 30 years. Jessica sets the tone for how all plays out.

Pierre, a professional dancer, suffers from a serious heart disease. While he is waiting for a transplant which may (or may not) save his life, he has nothing better to do than look at the people around him, from the balcony of his Paris apartment. When Elise, his sister with three kids and no husband, moves in to his place to care for him, Pierre does not change his new habits. And instead of dancing himself, it is Paris and the Parisians who dance before his eyes.

A successful artist, weary of Parisian life and on the verge of divorce, returns to the country to live in his childhood house. He needs someone to make a real vegetable garden again out of the wilderness it has become. The gardener happens to be a former schoolfriend. A warm, fruitful conversation starts between the two men...

Every year, Max, a successful restaurant owner, and Véro, his eco-friendly wife invite a merry group of friends to their beautiful beach house to celebrate Antoine's birthday and kick-start the vacation. But, this year, before they all leave Paris, their buddy Ludo is hurt in a serious accident, which sets off a dramatic chain of reactions and emotional responses. The eagerly anticipated vacation leads each of the protagonists to raise the little veils that for years they have draped over what bothers and upsets them. Pretenses become increasingly hard to keep up. Until the moment when the truth finally catches up with them all...

Lea, Adrian, and their little brother Theo, born deaf, go on holiday in Provence with their grandfather, Paul "Oliveron" they never met because of a family quarrel. Unfortunately, it is not the holidays they dreamed, especially after their father announced that he was leaving the house. In less than 24 hours, it is the clash of generations between the teens and their grandfather.

She drove me into a corner, then forced me to go beyond my limits. She made me confront the absolute: love, sacrifice, tenderness, abandonment. She dislocated me, transformed me. Why didn't anyone warn me? Why doesn't anyone ever talk about this?" Un heureux événement, or an intimate view of motherhood, sincere and with no taboos.

France, a middle-aged divorcée, has just been laid off after 20 years at the same shipping company. She takes an overdose of pills but is rushed to hospital and makes a complete recovery. Desperate for employment to support her three children, she moves to Paris where she connects with Ahmed, the father of a former co-worker. France pretends to be a low-skilled immigrant to find menial work, but is then offered the chance to be the housekeeper for Stéphane, a wealthy French banker who has returned to Paris after 10 years in London. The relationship between the pair is initially tense, but he eventually warms to her, especially after she proves herself an adept hand at taking care of his son for a month, an extra duty for which she is paid EUR200 a day. The relationship between them turns amorous on a trip to London to meet with partners of Stéphane's firm.

The prolific and beloved actor Gérard Depardieu stars as a simple semi-literate gardener coming from a harsh past when a chance friendship with a fragile sophisticated well-read old woman draws him into a much gentler environment where he remembers every word. Makes you think of Forrest Gump a la française. His girlfriend does not understand what is happening and his friends laugh at him.

Xavier is now thirty. No longer a student, he is not yet a well-balanced, fulfilled adult either. His career is unsatisfying: Far from being the renowned novelist he aimed to be he must be content with little jobs such as reporter or ghost writer. His greatest "achievement" in "literature" is his collaboration to the script of a corny TV soap! His sentimental life is not much better, rhythmed by one night stands and unfinished romances. It looks as if when he seduces a woman beautiful outside and inside such as Kassia or Wendy he can't keep them. Will he ever bring his life into focus?