Films recommandés pour N

Paul Dedalus is at a crossroads in his life. He has to make several decisions; should he complete his doctorate, does he want to become a full professor, does he really love his long-standing girlfriend, or should he re-start with one of his other lovers? Is he avoiding the despairing life his father can't escape from ?

Like Voltaire's Candide in his eponymous novel, Jallel, a young North-African man, dreaming of better prospects, immigrates illegally to France. He struggles at first as he is unable to find work and finds it difficult to make friends. But soon he gets to sell fruits in the underground, albeit illegally. He also makes some new friends and then falls in love. But his dreams of success remain unrealized as he comes to discover and share the solidarity of the other outcasts going from one encounter to the other, making his way through Paris, from hostels to immigrant aid societies and social welfare groups, living among the excluded and the destitute.

In the slums of Paris, a group of students - primarily North African and Southeast Asian immigrants - are staging a class production of the Marivaux play "Le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard," about the inevitability of class distinctions. Lead actress Lydia (Sara Forestier) takes to the material, encouraging and bullying the other students to take the production seriously. Meanwhile, her friend Krimo (Osman Elkharraz) plays her love interest on stage and harbors real affection as well.

At the end of their tour of duty in Afghanistan, two young military women, Aurore and Marine, are given three days of decompression leave with their unit at a five-star resort in Cyprus, among tourists. But it's not that easy to forget the war and leave the violence behind.

Journalist Jep Gambardella has charmed and seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades. Since the legendary success of his one and only novel, he has been a permanent fixture in the city's literary and social circles, but when his 65th birthday coincides with a shock from the past, Jep finds himself unexpectedly taking stock of his life, turning his cutting wit on himself and his contemporaries, and looking past the extravagant nightclubs, parties, and cafés to find Rome in all its glory: a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.

Lili returns from holidays and learns that her twin brother left the house after a violent argument with their father.

Georges and Anne are a couple of retired music teachers enjoying life in their eighties. However, Anne suddenly has a stroke at breakfast and their lives are never the same. That incident begins Anne's harrowingly steep physical and mental decline as Georges attempts to care for her at home as she wishes. Even as the fruits of their lives and career remain bright, the couple's hopes for some dignity prove a dispiriting struggle even as their daughter enters the conflict. In the end, George, with his love fighting against his own weariness and diminished future on top of Anne's, is driven to make some critical decisions for them both.

In the first half, Gregoire, a movie producer of great charm, owner of Moon Films, plays with his younger daughters, talks with his wife and his eldest daughter, and keeps his studio going while one project hemorrhages money and creditors circle. In the second half, Sylvia, his Italian wife, tries to hold the family together as she looks fully into Moon Films' troubles. She meets with a banker, a temperamental Swede, Russian TV magnates, a film lab exec, and Moon's lawyer. Clémence, the oldest daughter, goes on her own search. Debt can crush; how does a family pick up the pieces?

Paris, 1977. Eleven year old Stella knows poker better than grammar when she starts the year at a prestigious new school. There, she discovers the possibilities of a whole new world outside her parents' bar.

Teacher François Marin and his colleagues are preparing for another school year teaching at a racially mixed inner city high school in Paris. The teachers talk to each other about their prospective students, both the good and the bad. The teachers collectively want to inspire their students, but each teacher is an individual who will do things in his or her own way to achieve the results they desire. They also have differing viewpoints on the students themselves, and how best to praise and discipline them. The administration of the school tries to be as fair as possible, which includes having student representatives sit on the student evaluation committee. Marin's class this year of fourteen and fifteen year olds is no different than previous years, although the names and faces have changed. Marin tries to get through to his students, sometimes with success and sometimes resulting in utter failure. Even Marin has his breaking point, which may result in him doing things he would probably admit to himself are wrong. But after all is said and done, there is next year and another group of students.

Juliette Fontaine (Dame Kristin Scott Thomas) was in prison for fifteen years. Confronted with the unexpected goodness of her younger sister Léa (Elsa Zylberstein), who makes Juliette a part of her family, very slowly breaks up Juliette's ice and bitterness and she carefully opens up.

At the port of Sète, Mr. Slimani, a tired 60-year-old, drags himself toward a shipyard job that has become more and more difficult to cope with as the years go by. He is a divorced father who forces himself to stay close to his family despite the schisms and tensions that are easily sparked off and that financial difficulties make even more intense. He is going through a delicate period in his life and, recently, everything seems to make him feel useless: a failure. He wants to escape from it all and set up his own restaurant. However, it appears to be an unreachable dream given his meager, irregular salary that is not anywhere near enough to supply what he needs to realize his ambition. But he can still dream and talk about it with his family in particular. A family that gradually gives its support to this project, which comes to symbolize the means to a better life. Thanks to its ingeniousness and hard work, this dream soon becomes a reality...or almost....

Paloma is a serious and highly articulate but deeply bored 11-year-old who has decided to kill herself on her 12th birthday. Fascinated by art and philosophy, she questions and documents her life and immediate circle, drawing trenchant and often hilarious observations on the world around her. But as her appointment with death approaches, Paloma finally meets some kindred spirits in her building's grumpy concierge and an enigmatic, elegant neighbor, both of whom inspire Paloma to question her rather pessimistic outlook on life.

A dock worker in Le Havre hears a human sound inside one of the containers in port, that container which left Gabon three weeks ago and which was supposed to arrive in London five days after its departure from Gabon, which didn't happen. The Le Havre police and French border guards find a still alive group of illegal African immigrants inside. On the sign from one of his elders, a young teen boy among the illegal immigrants manages to escape, news of which hits the local media. The first friendly face that boy, Idrissa, encounters is that of former artist now aged shoeshine Marcel Marx. Marcel decides to help Idrissa by hiding him in his house, news which slowly trickles through his community of friends - most of whom he associates with at his local bar - and neighbors, most who assist Marcel in this task. Marcel goes to great lengths to find out Idrissa's story, which leads to Marcel's further task of trying to get Idrissa to London, his original end destination. The one neighbor who wants to turn Idrissa in and the authorities seem to be on to Marcel's activities, most specifically hard nosed police Inspector Monet, who may have his own private agenda. Through it all, Marcel has on his mind the health of his terminally ill and hospitalized wife Arletty, the terminal aspect being something of which he is unaware and which may in turn eventually kill him as Arletty is his life.

Five key days in a family's life.

In this belated sequel to 'The Decline of the American Empire', 50-something Montreal college professor Remy learns that he is dying of liver cancer. He decides to make amends to his family and friends before he dies. He first approaches his ex-wife Louise, who asks their estranged son Sebastian, a successful businessman living in London, to come home. Sebastian makes the impossible happen, using his contacts and disrupting the entire Canadian system in every way possible to help his father fight his terminal illness to the bitter end, while he tries to reunite his former friends, Pierre, Alain, Dominique, Diane, and Claude to see their old friend before he passes on.

Nathalie teaches philosophy at a high school in Paris. She is passionate about her job and particularly enjoys passing on the pleasure of thinking. Married with two children, she divides her time between her family, former students and her very possessive mother. One day, Nathalie's husband announces he is leaving her for another woman. With freedom thrust upon her, Nathalie must reinvent her life.

Lionel has brought up his daughter, Josephine, on his own since his wife's accidental death. Over the years, their life together has grown to resemble that of a couple. Josephine has now reached the age at which the roles begin to be inverted. She is now the one who seems to want to take care of her father. Lionel knows that he has one more thing to do: to convince Josephine to make her own way in the world, to become a woman and to leave him.