Henri Serre

The Life of Mirrors is one of the sections of the exhibition Luis Miguel Cintra - Small Theatre of the World. A commission by Serralves Foundation to Regina Guimarães and Saguenail, and constructed after an unpublished interview with Luis Miguel Cintra, this film is the result of a long and painstaking exercise of selecting and editing excerpts from films by Manoel de Oliveira in which Cintra participates as an actor. In this way, The Life of Mirrors is a reflective, retrospective essay film, which opens the Carte Blanche, thus establishing a gateway to Luis Miguel Cintra's cinematographic and cinephile career.

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It all begins when Lucien Lachenay (André Dussollier), famous builder of the moving sidewalk for the 1900 Universal Exhibition, saves the life of the beautiful Alice Avellano (Kristin Scott Thomas), whom her husband, who has gone mad, was trying to strangle. Lucien Lachenay is himself threatened by a group of anarchists who have instructed a young worker, Alphonse (Benno Fürmann), to suppress him. Alphonse messes up the job, but Lucien, impressed by his inexhaustible energy and thirst for knowledge, agrees to be his mentor instead of handing him over to the police. In the years that follow, Lucien, Alphonse, Alice and the young and attractive Laure (Isabelle Carré) will face the game of rivalry, betrayal and reconciliation.

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On a deserted island, an old caretaker with a waning memory wanders among the ruins of a former children’s prison, which was destroyed by a mutiny and a fire a long time ago.

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The first fiction film about de Gaulle. At the origin of the adventure, there is a script commissioned in 1942 from William Faulkner. It lacked the end of the story, and the view of the French of today. The destinies of the great and the small intersect, without meeting. Epics live on dreams as much as on reality.

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Jeanne is a woman who is driven by her very active conscience. She attempts to assuage her idealistic bent by trying out life as a nun, but this doesn't work out. After she leaves the convent, she takes a job at a factory, where the callousness of management spurs her to become a labor activist. Her efforts are marked by great persistence and fervor, but she lacks any kind of diplomacy or persuasiveness, and as the years progress, she manages to alienate everyone in her life. By the end of the film, there is only one way that she can see to resolve the horrible situation she finds herself in.

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A history of the French Revolution beginning from the decision of the king to convene the Etats-Generaux in 1789 in order to deal with France's debt problem. Part one spans the event until August 10, 1792 (when the King Louis XVI lost all authority and was imprisoned). Part two carries the story through the end of the terror in 1794.

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Manoel de Oliveira plays his film in three stages: the first part - a play, the second can be roughly defined as a silent film (with the behind the scenes read excerpts from Beckett works), but in the end the director brilliantly performs the same material of the avant-garde exercise. Surprisingly, a joke, repeated three times, each time everything sounds fresh and develops into an almost verbatim adaptation of the biblical "Book of Job" - a spectacular point in a parable about how hard to empathize with other people's misery, when you have your own.

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During the century of the Spanish Gold, Doña Prouhèze, wife of a nobleman, deeply loves Don Rodrigo, who is forced to leave Spain and go to America. Meanwhile Prouhèze is sent to Africa to rule the city of Mogador. Ten years later Rodrigo leaves America and travels to Africa in search of Prouhèze to find out that she died and eventually meeting her daughter.

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In a specialized, hermetic drama about love won and lost, not necessarily by the same individuals, novice director Christine Laurent has focused on the backstage melodramas of an opera company. The conductor for an upcoming performance of the Marriage of Figaro has his mind and heart on other matters -- an entrancing diva who keeps him enraptured with her presence and voice. In the meantime, he finds fault with his cast members who cannot, of course, measure up to the woman of his dreams. As singers encounter one problem or another, it is clear that something has to be done about the conductor. Director Laurent designed costumes for both theater and opera, giving her some insight into the venue.

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A meeting between the Swedish/French Simone and the Norwegian Stein at a book convention in Frankfurt turns into something more. They keep contact by phone and cassettes, but it seems they don't dare to take the relationship any further.

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In an elevator, a group of young people are in conversation...

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A drifter navigates the fringes of Parisian society. The protagonist, a solitary man seeking direction, becomes entangled with a group of outsiders—misfits, lovers, and wanderers—who live on the city's margins. As he moves through this world, he connects with a woman whose struggles mirror his. Their relationship is fragile, shaped by fleeting moments of intimacy and the harsh realities of their surroundings. The film captures their attempts to escape their circumstances, but fate and the weight of their pasts make change elusive.

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A woman on a train becomes the center of attention when she is mistaken for a spy by opposing factions who are traveling on the same line.

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A 3 part drama series about the notorious powerful Borgia family who took power in Italy in the 15th/16th centuries.

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In Nazi-occupied France, a German officer is assassinated. The Germans demand justice, and the Vichy government is quick to capitulate. Unable to apprehend the actual culprits, Minister of Justice Joseph Barthélémy decides the execution of token Frenchmen will suffice, but the problem is finding judges and jurors eager to participate in a sham trial of innocent men. The solution is a Special Section, a court comprised of individuals handpicked for this exact purpose.

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Ann, a ten-year-old girl, becomes the sole heir of millions from her grandmother. Ann's parents, who are short of money and have lost all hope of a bright future try to manipulate Ann's imagination in such a way that she loses her mind.

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Marcel is a taxi driver who luckily pickups a gorgeous woman who begins to undress herself while in the back seat. Soon she leads him to a Private Club where he can pick any woman he wants to satisfy his sexual fantasies. After he enjoys a few exciting moments with 2 lovely ladies he is introduced to the many characters that make up the Private Club and begins enjoying the sexual games. The Private Club isn't all that's on Marcel's mind though as he is madly in love with Lisa who he met in Paris.

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A kaleidoscope of images from history populate this skillfully animated French feature. The story concerns a history professor whose ideas about human history cause him distress. Amid a flurry of newsreel-type images, Joan of Arc's trial is shown. Another theme which emerges is of two ages (in the far past and far future) in which naked humans fight one another with animalistic aggression.

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In this French-language film, Albin is a mercenary soldier. Sure, he's paid to kill, but he only agrees to jobs where he's killing those who need to be killed. Anyway, he trusts his buddies, and they trust him: in this case with a big haul of money they found in a jungle shoot-out. When he returns to France one of the first things he does, quite by chance, is to go see the act of Le Grande Magic Circus. The circus keeps coming into his life for the rest of the movie, as he tries to live a "regular" life.

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Since time immemorial, the simple-minded boisterous people of Malava, a small Polish town near the border of imperial Russia, have lived on horse-stealing, horse-trading and horse-smuggling. Life changes abruptly when a Russian garrison, commanded by Captain Stoloff, occupies the town and, in the name of the Czar, requisitions all the horses for the Russian-Japanese War. With no more horses to steal, Kifke cannot afford to marry Estusha and all the young men in the village are likely to be incorporated into the Russian army. This state of affairs cannot continue and Zavill will take care of things.

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The journey of initiation of a man and his lifeless child, from the anonymous crowds of Paris to the banks of the Oise, reinvented in the style of the Styx.

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Screenwriter Philippe (Duchaussoy) imagines a crime committed by his wife Sylvie (Delon) and a mutual friend Pierre (Serre): a dead body is put in a trunk but the hand sticks out. Sylvie and Pierre begin to have an affair and things get very dangerous and the imaginary crime is on its way to becoming prophetic.

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The cigar-smoking French writer, George Sand (Lucia Bose) and her lover, the composer-pianist Chopin (Christopher Sandford) have rented a former monastery in Mallorca as a winter retreat. They have even shipped a piano to the site, so that Chopin can continue his work. However, what promised to be a warm, sunny vacation turns sour as the locals disapprove of Sand, the servants are surly and mysterious, and the monastery is cold. She has her revenge, however. She wrote the book A Winter in Mallorca about her miserable winter retreat. This film follows that book closely, with concern for historical accuracy, which did not increase the Spanish filmmakers' popularity with their countrymen.

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In the third and final episode of the trilogy, Fantômas imposes a head tax on the rich, threatening to kill those who do not comply.

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After an American Navy base is annihilated by a secret weapon, Agent OSS 117 is sent to Japan to investigate the organization that's claiming responsibility, and threatening the US with another attack, if they don't pay.

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A mysterious woman, claiming to be a nurse who had disappeared during the bombing of Nagasaki, communicates with an atomic plant engineer by means of his TV set

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Depressed Alain Leroy leaves the clinic where he was detoxified. He meets friends, acquaintances and women, trying to find a reason to continue living.

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This film is the moving story of Edda Ciano, the daughter of Italian dictator Mussolini, who was unable to prevent the atrocious assassination of her husband by fanatics of her father.

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The charismatic, surly son of a wealthy industrialist, Clément, leads a double life as a member of a right-wing extremist organization. When he’s ratted out after a failed assassination attempt on a prominent politician, Clément and his long-suffering wife Anne flee Paris to the idyllic country home of his childhood friend, pacifist print-maker Paul. As affection blossoms between Paul and Anne, the emotional, as well as political tensions, soar and eventually explode.

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In the carefree days before World War I, introverted Austrian author Jules strikes up a friendship with the exuberant Frenchman Jim and both men fall for the impulsive and beautiful Catherine.

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