Sarah-Jane Sauvegrain

China: The Making of a Nation is the story of the painful transformation of the vast Qing Empire into the Chinese nation after the 1911 revolution. Spanning more than a century up to the Xi Jinping era, the story pits the two pivotal leaders of this transformation against each other: Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Republic of China for 47 years, and Mao Zedong, who rose from ‘red bandit’ to master of the mainland in 1949. Sworn enemies, they fought a merciless battle: first military, then diplomatic, and finally, beyond their deaths, in the conflicting memories of the Taiwanese and the Chinese of the People's Republic. Beyond their fierce hatred, the two tyrants also had much in common: a certain vision of Chinese territory and the greatness of China, the desire to regain the country's sovereignty and the quest for a Chinese identity in a nation that also includes Tibetans, Uighurs, Mongols... and a certain ability to rewrite history.

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In the 1980s, Nastassja Kinski was an international star and a true sex symbol. In just a few films, she established herself as one of the most talented and promising actresses of her generation. Discovered at age 13 by Wim Wenders and revealed by Roman Polanski at 18, she built her career around the images that directors projected onto her, seeking to break the stereotypes that people wanted to box her into. However, after a 10-year career, Nastassja Kinski disappeared, leaving us with a mystery.

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The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRGC is the protector of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the military arm of the Supreme Leader. Also known as the Pasdaran, this deep-state mafia comprising 120,000 men has extensive powers, ensuring bloody repression of the people. No strangers to smuggling and trafficking, the IRGC’s economic empire is worth hundreds of billions of dollars. The Supreme Leader Khomeini has allowed the organization to infiltrate the state and its members are now mayors, members of parliament and ministers, cultivating their networks at the highest levels. The IRGC is responsible for Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and cultivates not only the art of deterrence, but also a strategy of asymmetrical warfare via the militias and terrorist organizations they finance, arm, and control across the Middle East.

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Over half a century of public service, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing embodied the dream of a united and strong Europe. From the youthful enthusiasm of the 1950s to the disillusionment of the 2005 referendum, his career chronicles an ideal confronted with the realities of power, national resistance, and populist winds. He tirelessly attempted to realize his youthful dream: a United States of Europe.

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In 1936, the sound film had already been around for a decade. Nevertheless, Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) made another silent film, "Modern Times", which only used sound effects as a dramaturgical device. Speaking is reserved for the apparatus alone. The film became a monument in the history of cinema for this very reason.

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Three years after the devastating fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, archaeological excavations uncovered treasures that had been hidden beneath the building for centuries: In addition to numerous sculpture fragments, there were also two human-shaped lead coffins. Who are the dead in these sarcophagi? What did the sculptures represent and why are they buried under the church? By venturing into previously inaccessible areas of the Gothic sacred building, the archaeologists uncovered a forgotten part of its history. An interdisciplinary team of scientists is undertaking extensive work to uncover the secrets of Notre-Dame.

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Explore the mysterious giant rings of the Mediterranean, buried at a depth of 120m, with the world-famous Laurent Ballesta, world-renowned diver and his team, to understand the origin of these unique and unknown formations.

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The Mandrin Cave in the Rhône Valley is a fascinating excavation site. Archaeologist Ludovic Slimak discovered fossils and flints here, proving that Neanderthals inhabited the cave for over 80,000 years. The first Neanderthal in France for half a century was also unearthed in the cave: He was given the name Thorin.

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A journey through the artistic life of the British-American rock band The Pretenders, formed in 1978, and a portrait of its leader, the charismatic singer and songwriter Chrissie Hynde.

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In 1945, two young American soldiers, brothers Budd and Stuart Schulberg, are commissioned to collect filmed and recorded evidence of the horrors committed by the infamous Third Reich in order to prove Nazi war crimes during the Nuremberg trials (1945-46). The story of the making of Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, a paramount historic documentary, released in 1948.

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The portrait of the last cowboy Hollywood legend dives into the 65 years of an extraordinary career in Hollywood, highlighted iconic films like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, as well as Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River and Gran Torino all the way to Cry Macho in 2021. It is no small task to cover more than 60 years of cinema history, especially when it is trying to surveyed with such breadth and diversity: TV star, international star, controversial icon, contested director, filmmaker with a capital F, Eastwood has been through it all, experienced it all, and it is first of all this romantic trajectory, this true American pastoral that the documentary wants to tell with all the passion it possibly can.

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Brad Pitt is a singular actor in Hollywood's glamorous world, breaking through his "playboy image" and embodying American cinema's renewal. At the beginning there was a humble Midwestern aware of being a smokescreen for the illusions of his time, who has managed to keep control of his image to better serve the most talented directors of our time. To name but a few: David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, the Coen brothers, Terrence Malick, James Gray and soon Damien Chazelle. This documentary dives into the brain of a complex, brilliant and endearing personality, far from the cliché of a world-famous movie icon to discover the hidden side of the most handsome man in the world.

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The real dream of the American pastor Martin Luther King was never limited to civil rights. He hoped for a just America, where poverty would no longer have a place. Social equality was for him the only guarantee of a true emancipation. During the last four years of his life, he mobilized all his energy to realize this "other dream". But there were many obstacles: he was scorned by white, racist America, abandoned by the political class, but also by some of his own people, who decided to turn their backs on the principle of non-violence.

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As soon as he came to power in 2012, Xi Jinping clearly stated his ambition for a national renaissance. He will combine this with the construction of a powerful army and a certain vision of Chinese territory, which includes the reunification of Taiwan. In this quest, control of the oceans has become a crucial issue, and America an obstacle. In the South China Sea and the Pacific, the Chinese Communist Party has been pursuing a strategy to undermine American influence for the past decade. Relying on the active participation of maritime militias - fishermen trained by the military - China is creating a grey area between war and peace that destabilizes both its neighbors and the world's leading military power.

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A journey through the meteoric rise and tempestuous story of the legendary American actor Al Pacino, from the Bronx of New York to worldwide stardom.

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The story of Fantômas, the first villain of modernity, from his birth in 1911 as a novel character to his contemporary vicissitudes, passing through Louis Feuillade, André Hunebelle, surrealism and Moscow.

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Installed at the heart of Japanese society when the country was in a state of collapse after World War II, and then launched on a frantic course to achieve modernity, over a period of 60 years, Michiko followed an unexpected path: that of encouraging the Japanese people to indulge in greater introspection in order to build a united, peaceful and enlightened Japan.

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In eight films, Jacques Audiard has renewed French cinema, without alienating either the critics or the success. It is only at the age of 42 that he starts directing, after having been an editor and a scriptwriter. In 1994, he directed his first film, "Regarde les hommes tomber", whose conflicting shooting was an ordeal for this misanthropic beginner. It was with "Sur mes lèvres", in 2001, that he forged his cinematographic language: contained lyricism, deliberate imperfection of images, ellipses plunging the audience into a maelstrom of sensations. With each of his films, Jacques Audiard intends to renew himself, at the cost of challenges and doubts always more vivid.

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Betty Boop was one of the stars of the early cartoon era. As her name suggests - Boob stands for breasts - Betty Boop's trademark is her sex appeal. But what does the black and white female figure really embody? Is she a child woman, an object of lust, a femme fatale or an early feminist?

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During the last years of his life, the Marquis de Sade was imprisoned. Alone in his wanderings, this man of letters wrote almost every day. We discover a man of exquisite complexity: his painful introspection reveals a man in love, a visionary, but also a fragile and terribly human being... this story flies in the face of presuppositions about Sade.

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Paris, 1940. German occupation forces create a new film production company, Continental, and put Alfred Greven – producer, cinephile, and opportunistic businessman – in charge. During the occupation, under Joseph Goebbels’s orders, Greven hires the best artists and technicians of French cinema to produce successful, highly entertaining films, which are also strategically devoid of propaganda. Simultaneously, he takes advantage of the confiscation of Jewish property to purchase film theaters, studios and laboratories, in order to control the whole production line. His goal: to create a European Hollywood. Among the thirty feature films thus produced under the auspices of Continental, several are, to this day, considered classics of French cinema.

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A mummified corpse has been found by workers who were knocking down a wall. Ariane Sallès and Gaspard Lesage are in charge of the investigation.

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Using testimonies by pioneers and witnesses of the times, delve into the feverish visual culture the media generated – with far-fetched examples of canine television games, seduction manuals, aerobics class while holding a baby, among others.

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24 hours in Paris following the trail of different people whose fates will cross decisively.

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Loulou is a wolf. Tom is a rabbit. As curious as it may seem, Loulou and Tom have been inseparable since they were little. Now in their teens, they live the easy life in the Land of the Rabbits. But Loulou, who thought he was an orphan, learns that his bohemian mother is alive. The two friends set out to find her in the principality of Wolfenberg, the Land of the Wolves. They arrive in the middle of the Meat-eaters' Festival, a yearly get together for the world's great carnivores. Will Loulou and Tom's friendship survive in the land where herbivores always end up as the main course? What incredible secret lies behind Loulou's birth?

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Five very different students navigate life at the Capuchin seminary, facing tough questions of faith under the guidance of a freethinking priest.

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Pam is twenty. She and her girlfriends hang out together on the couch at The Ranch, the apartment she shares with Manon. Sitting around chatting, drinking, smoking, and dancing are part of life at their age, but there comes a time when you need to cut loose from the group and go your own way...

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