A voir

A tale set in a decaying Parisian porn theatre, where within its dark confines, male patrons--soldiers, transvestites, married men--regularly engage in anonymous sex acts. In the ticket booth of the theatre, a wise Italian woman serves as benevolent gatekeeper, observing--but never judging--the proceedings occurring under her watchful eyes. One day, one of her regulars engages her in a conversation that leads to an unusual friendship, as these two worldly souls share their common experiences.

Two young women find themselves struggling to survive in Paris, street-wise Nathalie, a stripper, and naïve Sandrine, a barmaid. Together, they discover that sex can be used to their advantage, and pleasure. Both find positions in the office of a large bank, where bored, under-stimulated, prey are easy pickings. After making their way though several layers of executives at the bank, with destructive, and lucrative, results, they approach Christophe, scion to the bank director. What they don't know is that he is a manipulative voyeur, whose last two lovers set themselves on fire when he rejected them. A connoisseur of high-class orgies, he is only interested in new talent to satisfy the appetites of all whom he controls. In him, the girls have found an opponent who knows all their wiles, and will challenge their simple under-class friendship with levels of jealousy and ecstasy that they have never experienced before. Will they survive?

In a small town of France, life seems to be boring for a group of teenage friends who--day in, day out--are asked to cope not only with the usual issues in the life of a high-school student but also with the restless search for love and sex. Under those circumstances, when an innocent game of truth or dare on a Saturday night party rapidly transforms into a mandatory, dare only, series of sexy challenges between friends, the means to unfold one's true self, and the hidden potential in everyone present will be evident. Before long, alcohol and a few drugs will give birth to the new "Bang Gang" revolution; nevertheless, what deceptively appears as a way to deal with boredom, strained family relationships, emancipation--and above all--personal liberty, will quickly turn into the biggest scandal, and a mockery of a modern fairy tale.

Anne (Juliette Binoche), a well-off, Paris-based mother of two and investigative journalist for ELLE, is writing an article about student prostitution. Her meetings with two fiercely independent young women, Alicja (Joanna Kulig) and Charlotte (Anais Demoustier), are profound and unsettling, moving her to question her most intimate convictions about money, family and sex.

Although deeply in love with her boyfriend - and indeed sleeping in the same bed with him - a schoolteacher cannot handle the almost complete lack of intimacy he will allow. Increasingly frustrated, she gradually finds her sexual appetites leading her into ever more risky situations, including a developing one with the headmaster.

Jay is a bartender who abandoned his family because his wife lost interest in him and their relationship. Now living alone in a decrepit house, he has casual weekly sex with an anonymous woman, whose name he does not know. At first, their relationship is purely physical, but he eventually falls in love with her. Wanting to know more about her, he follows her across the streets of London to the grey suburbs where she lives. He then follows her to a pub theatre where she works as an actress in the evenings. He learns that her name is Claire, and she is married to Andy has a son. Subsequently, it is made clear to him that she will not leave her family. They meet for a final time and have sex with an intimacy that has been missing during the illicit sex sessions of their previous encounters.

Jeanne lives in Paris and believes she is the reincarnation of Don Juan. She visits a priest and tells him she has killed a man. He comes to her elegant flat - her father has died leaving her rich - and she tells the priest stories about men she has seduced. The seduction is easy, she tells him, it's destruction that takes planning. We watch her with an upright elected official, a wealthy boor, and a folk singer. She describes herself as a spider. Her friend Léporella tries to be Jeanne's conscience. What does Jeanne want?

Jacques made pornographic films in the 1970s and '80s, but had put that aside for 20 years. His artistic ideas, born of the '60s counter-culture, had elevated the entire genre. Older and paunchier, he is now directing a porno again. Jacques's artistry clashes with his financially-troubled producer's ideas about shooting hard-core sex. He has been estranged from his son Joseph for years, since the son first learned the nature of the family business. They are now speaking again. Joseph and his friends want to recapture the idealism of 1968 with a protest. Separated from his wife, Jacques strives for personal renewal with plans to build a new house by himself.

Four erotic tales from in various historical eras. The first, 'The Tide', is set in the present day, and concerns a student and his young female cousin stranded on the beach by the tide, secluded from prying eyes. 'Therese Philosophe' is set in the nineteenth century, and concerns a girl being locked in her bedroom, where she contemplates the erotic potential of the objects contained within it. 'Erzsebet Bathory' is a portrait of the sixteenth-century countess who allegedly bathed in the blood of virgins, while 'Lucrezia Borgia' concerns an incestuous fifteenth-century orgy involving Lucrezia, her brother, and her father the Pope.

Laura is a 19-year-old university freshman who desperately wants to do well in school. She works a part-time job but cannot make ends meet. One evening in which she is short of funds, she answers a personal ad online by "Joe," 57, who seeks a female student for "tender moments." The pay is 100 euros per hour. Laura pledges to do this just once, and three days later, she goes to a hotel room with Joe. And then her spiral begins.

Desire for a subject that functions like a brief fling with no future as such, yet embellished by that very fact. Because something fleeting and futureless is not necessarrily pathetic or trivial. A brief crossing, perhaps an initiatory trip. Filming a guy's "first time", filming him like a girl. Gut level skin deep... Nostalgia for vast ocean liners, for places "beyond the law" where you can venture outside of life, safe within an interlude. Describing a passion while respecting classical tragedy's unity of time and place, setting the stage for the eternal play of Masculine/Feminine. A hot-blooded Latin temperatment versus an apparently cool English one. A ship - one night - Sudden intimacy between an Englishwoman whose complexion is frosted by bitterness and a teenager whose gaze glows like ardent coals.

A woman and three men. Nina, who's come to Paris to act and sleeps with any man at hand, meets Paulot, a young estate agent; he's smitten. She also meets Paulot's flatmate Quentin, a compulsive who stalks her. To Paulot's jealous dismay, she's willing to sleep with Quentin, and wants Paulot's friendship. After a desperate act by Quentin, Nina and Paulot share a flat, but she still won't take him as a lover; instead, her energy goes into a production of "Romeo and Juliet" directed by a detached, intense man who becomes her father figure. Quentin's ghost taunts her, Paulot wants to end all contact, and the director plans to return to London. The art of the theater may be her only refuge.

Friends of a recently deceased minor painter Jean-Baptiste take a train in Paris for Limoges, where he wished to be buried, and all the people on the train have their problems.

Frédérique is a rich and beautiful woman who picks up a female street artist called "Why". It is December and they go to her villa in Saint Tropez, which is inhabited by a couple of odd gay men. Both women fall for the local architect Paul Thomas. However Why says that she is not interested in him, so Frédérique invites him to move into the villa.

Camille, a naive schoolgirl meets an intiguing influence in Joelle, a slightly older and much more experienced spirit. Camille follows her new friend through the discovery of sex and the darker side of life. As the film progresses Camille discovers Aids and the fear that she may have picked up the disease in her early encounters.

A group of cinematic spend a holiday in the French countryside. The film provides insight in their relationships, including that between a young man and a local girl, Lili. She uses the opportunity to work her way into the cinematic world, and for which she swaps her young friend for his mother's lover. This settled filmmaker takes Lili on a trip to Paris. A few years later the young man has become a filmmaker himself. His first film is inspired by the mentioned holiday. Lili, by now an actress, learns about it and works herself in a refined way into its cast. Ending up as the star of this production. No more than that, for the young filmmaker remains faithful to his wife and young daughter.

A character study. Jeanne Charmant-Killman is an investigative magistrate, tough minded, swift moving, taking on a group of political fixers who pay bribes and skim large sums for personal use. She breaks them one at a time. Meanwhile, her work takes its toll: relations with her husband are strained, and the group under investigation strikes back by tampering with the brakes of her car and placing a mole in her office. Can she stand up to the pressure, and what's her reward?

François is a film-maker, usually impassive and without affect. He's making a film about women's pleasure as they transgress taboos. He doesn't know that two fallen angels who've been sent to upend him are manipulating his interest. He interviews young women, video tapes screen tests, and selects several for the film. The erotic scenes with them generate off-screen dynamics that may overwhelm the project. His wife is at first ignorant of his venture, then she's put off, and then becomes his assistant. The fallen angels are always close at hand: is François's ruin inevitable?