Julien Duvivier

This feature documentary by Jean-Claude Labrecque recounts the bold and astounding enterprise of French filmmaker Julien Duvivier, who shot a film adaptation of Louis Hémon’s classic novel Maria Chapdelaine in Péribonka, a village in Quebec’s Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region, in 1934. What was the impact of the original film’s production on the life of the community? What memories remain? What town secrets lie hidden in those memories?

Open details →

Open details →

Produced for television by Claude-Jean Philippe, the « Encyclopédie audiovisuelle du cinéma », recounts the history of French cinema from its birth to the beginning of the 1960s. With commentary read by Jean Rochefort.

Open details →

Open details →

Macbeth is a French 1915 film adaptation of the William Shakespeare play Macbeth. It was released on December 31, 1915, in France. It is a silent black-and-white film with French intertitles.

Open details →

A wealthy amnesiac begins to suspect that his devoted wife is not really his wife and that he is not the man people keep telling him he is.

Open details →

The film consists of seven roughly 15 minute episodes, each showing what will happen if one or more of the Ten Commandments will be broken: Jérome Chambard is warned that he will lose his job if he continues to swear; Françoise Beaufort enamored of a stripper calls on her only to find her married to a janitor who doesn't know what kind of dancing his wife performs; Denis, a Jesuit novice, leaves the order to avenge his sister's suicide, which was provoked by Garigny, who seduced her into prostitution and drug addiction; Philip buys a necklace for Micheline though he is bored with her; a young man find out that his real mother is not Madeleine, but actress Clarisse Ardant; Didier Marin, cashier of a bank, was fired by his boss; the Devil appears as a serpent for Jérome Chambard and the bishop are eating.

Open details →

A group of people visit a weird old man who is a student of the black arts. The man lives in an ancient, cursed castle. Soon people in the group start being killed off.

Open details →

Boulevard focuses on Georges 'Jojo' Castagnier, an adolescent who lives in a poor room under the roof of a block of apartments in the Pigalle section of Paris. He ran away from home when he realized that his step-mother hated him from day-one. Among Jojo's many neighbors is the gorgeous Jenny Dorr , a nightclub dancer, whose lover he dreams of being. But, to Jojo's disappointment, Jenny becomes the lover of Dicky, a former boxer, who spends his time loafing about the Pigalle cafés. Jojo lacks for steady work, but manages to meet his financial obligations with a series of odd jobs. He tries selling magazines, which is a success for a while, though posing as Narcissus for two gay artists proves to be something of a disaster. Eventually, he woos Marietta, one of his other neighbors and a girl more suited to his age. But when things go really awry, Jojo becomes desperate and tries to commit suicide by jumping off the roof of his building

Open details →

Doris Putzke is fond of dating men in her quest to find the perfect one. In her brief relationships, she goes from one disillusionment to another, constantly deluding herself about the intentions of her lovers.

Open details →

A group of ex-resistance fighters are brought together by Marie-Octobre, the code name of Marie-Helene Dumoulin. The former members of the network have carried on with their lives after the war, but this evening they are going to have to live again a fateful night – the night their leader was killed. He had been betrayed, his name given to the Germans. The search for the traitor puts each personality in the spotlight – and also that of the killed leader, Castille.

Open details →

Handsome and rich Spanish gentleman abandons his wife and riches for his love of a young girl of poor stock who taunts and degrades him.

Open details →

Young, handsome, dashing but cynical, Octave Mouret arrives in Paris, determined to conquer the belles of the capital.

Open details →

In the absence of his wife, a clarinet player is induced by a friend to meet a call girl, but arrived after a crime. Perceived by some people leaving the scene of the crime covered by his raincoat, he became the only suspect for the police. His only hope is to discover the murderer before is name is mentionned publicly, specially in front of his wife.

Open details →

In the heart of Paris, a restaurateur's mundane life is disrupted by the arrival of his ex-wife's daughter, who claims to be in need after her mother's death. After marrying her, tensions rise when she becomes involved with a young student, leading to betrayal and murder. As secrets unfold, he uncovers the truth about her past and her manipulative nature.

Open details →

A new teenage student arrives at a prestige boarding school in Bavaria, having not only the ability to play the guitar and sing, but also to charm animals and detect ghosts. Quickly becoming part of a secretive club of five other students, he is inadvertently stranded by them at an abandoned chateau on an island in the middle of a large lake, where he encounters an enchanting young woman who wants to escape. Also filmed in a separate French language version with largely different cast, MARIANNE DE MA JEUNESSE.

Open details →

Prosecutor Etzel discovers that his father has sentenced a man, Leonardo Maurizius, on mere presumptions. He then makes it a point of honor to trace the sources of the case to uncover the truth.

Open details →

Energetic priest Don Camillo returns to the town of Brescello for more political and personal duels with Communist mayor Peppone.

Open details →

Two scriptwriters argue about the fate of Henrietta, a charming and gamine shopgirl. One favors a comical path for their heroine, who is overcome with sentimental love for a young photographer on Bastille Day. The other has a more thrilling and dastardly fate in mind for her. Among the film's irresistible conceits is Hildegarde Neff as an oversexed circus bareback rider.

Open details →

In a village of the Po valley where the earth is hard and life miserly, the priest and the communist mayor are always fighting to be the head of the community. If in secret, they admired and liked each other, politics still divided them as it is dividing the country. And when the mayor wants his "People's House"; the priest wants his "Garden City" for the poor. Division exist between the richest and the poorest, the pious and the atheists and even between lovers. But if the people are hard as the country, they are good in the bottom of there heart.

Open details →

A man who lost everything in the war now smuggles contraband into and out of Spain, but the law's closing in.

Open details →

Au Royaume des Cieux takes place in in a dreadful girls' reformatory. A couple of lovers will try to escape from this living hell.

Open details →

In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted— but in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation.

Open details →

Proud, eccentric, and antisocial, Monsieur Hire has always kept to himself. But after a woman turns up dead in the Paris suburb where he lives, he feels drawn to a pretty young newcomer to town and discovers that his neighbors are only too ready to suspect the worst of him.

Open details →

A condemned murderer named Clement is "liberated" when the Nazis bomb the French jail that holds him. During his escape, Clement comes across the body of a French soldier; he steals the dead man's uniform and identification papers, then hides from the law by joining the Resistance movement. Clement's new identity and purpose in life reforms him, and in due time he has sacrificed himself in service of his country.

Open details →

Anthology film of three tales of the supernatural. The first story is set at the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The second involves a psychic who predicts murder. The third is about a man who literally meets the girl of his dreams.

Open details →

The story of how the people of Paris cope with the strains and struggles of war, from the siege of the city by the Prussians during the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 to the invasion by the Germans in World War II.

Open details →

Lydia MacMillan, a wealthy woman who has never married, invites several men her own age to her home to reminisce about the times when they were young and courted her. In memory, each romance seemed splendid and destined for happiness, but in each case, Lydia realizes, the truth was less romantic, and ill-starred.

Open details →

French version of the Selma Lagerlof story, most famously filmed in 1921 by Victor Sjostrom, about a poor sinner who only realizes what misery he's wrought when he dies on New Year's Eve and is collected by Death in his carriage.

Open details →

Aged penniless actors are living in a old people's home. They always talk about their past glory or failures. One day Raphael Saint-Clair comes; he has been a famous actor and had a lot of love affairs. Passions come back, and jealousies... A bitter film about aging, failure and the entertainment.

Open details →

After the death of her husband, Christine realizes she has possibly wasted her life by marrying him instead of the man towards whom, in her youth, she had a stronger inclination. To overcome these dreary thoughts, she decides to find out about him and the other men who danced with her during a ball that was a turning point in her life, many years ago. She pays a visit to those forgotten acquaintances one after the other; Christine is not only surprised to see how they have fared, but also discovers the impact she had, unknowingly, on the feelings and the destiny of these persons.

Open details →

Pépé le Moko, one of France's most wanted criminals, hides out in the Casbah section of Algiers. He knows police will be waiting for him if he tries to leave the city. When Pépé meets Gaby, a gorgeous woman from Paris who is lost in the Casbah, he falls for her.

Open details →

Alfred Boulard, a good-natured electrician, gives his blood to save Mona Thalia, a great theater actress. Mona Thalia survives and Boulard becomes the man of the hour. Grateful to him, Mona helps Alfred to become a singing star. But his fame will be short-lived.

Open details →

Five unemployed workers win 100,000 Francs in the national lottery. Instead of sharing the money, they buy a ruin and build an open-air cafe. But difficulties come to split their friendly group apart.

Open details →

The Golem, a giant creature created out of clay by a rabbi, comes to life in a time of trouble to protect the Jews of Prague from persecution.

Open details →

Pierre Gilieth has committed a murder in Paris. He flees to Barcelona, where he runs out of money. So he joins the Spanish Foreign Legion. He meets there two fellow countrymen, Mulot and Lucas. He tries to forget his fault... but Lucas's friendship soon appears to be less unselfish...

Open details →

Mister Darnétal is invited by his nephew Georges to the premiere of his extravaganza in Paris;but his partner (he did not marry her,even after all those years)is not prepared to accept it and he uses his best friend as an alibi ;the two pals intend to live a wild life in the capital where there are plenty of lovely girls.But the uncle discovers that his dear nephew has a fiancee ,actually an unwed mother for she's got a little kid.The young man has fallen for the star of his variety show,a coquette fickle Chanteuse who ,in the end ,only has eyes for her co-star in the show .Uncle gets angry ,threatens to disinherit this infamous nephew and marries the young mom ,unbeknown to his fifty-something partner who has come to meet him in Paris.

Open details →

The final days of Jesus from the time he enters the city of Jerusalem. Viewed as a threat, it is decided that he must be captured, tried, and executed as a criminal, a plan aided and abetted by disciple Judas Iscariot.

Open details →

A young woman has three suitors on her father's logging ranch on the Quebec frontier.

Open details →

Bastien and Ségard decide to leave France for Canada. They buy tickets aboard a rickety craft, the Tenacity, that never quite seems able to leave port. While stuck there they both fall for the innkeeper's daughter, which causes them to rethink their Canadian notions.

Open details →

King Michel VIII is still a child, but when revolution threatens, the young monarch's entourage lies to him and even tries to get rid of him.

Open details →