A mother's last wishes send twins Jeanne and Simon on a journey to Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's acclaimed play, Incendies tells the powerful and moving tale of two young adults' voyage to the core of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love.
Normandy, 1819. Jeanne is a young woman full of childish dreams and innocence when she returns home after finishing her schooling in a convent. She marries a local Viscount, Julien de Lamare, who soon reveals himself to be a miserly and unfaithful man. Little by little Jeanne’s illusions are stripped away.
An author returns to his hometown of Cognac for the first time in 35 years to help promote a distillery. Once there, he meets his first love’s son, Lucas. Memories come rushing back to him: irrepressible attraction, bodies becoming one in the heat of desire, a passion that can never be revealed… His first love’s name was Thomas. They were 17.
A filmmaker holds a series of boundary-pushing auditions for his latest project: a thriller on the subject of female pleasure.
The future of Marguerite, a brilliant student in Mathematics at the prestigious Ecole Normale Supérieure, seems all planned out. The only woman from her year, Marguerite is finishing a thesis she has to present to an audience of researchers. On the big day, a mistake shakes all her certainties and all her foundations collapse.
Wisi is in trouble. He arrives in Bordeaux in the hope of finding a job and crosses paths with Marina, a humanitarian with a big heart. To get accommodation with her, he pretends to be undocumented. One evening, he meets Jérôme, himself on the street after the death of his mother.
The tragic story of French naïve painter Séraphine Louis aka Séraphine de Senlis (1864-1942), a humble servant who becomes a gifted self-taught painter. Discovered by prominent critic and collector William Uhde, she came to prominence between the wars grouped with other naïve painters like Henri Rouseau only to descend into madness and obscurity with the onset of Great Depression and World War II.
The life of two women and their families in a small provincial town of Salta, Argentina.
Salam, an inexperienced young Palestinian man, becomes a writer on a popular soap opera after a chance meeting with an Israeli soldier. His creative career is on the rise - until the soldier and the show's financial backers disagree about how the show should end, and Salam is caught in the middle.
Far from Tel Aviv and big city crimes, Daphna, 40, a promising police officer with a big mouth, finds herself in the small town of Afula dealing with petty crimes, seeking shade from the scorching heat and dodging the nagging question:” When are you going to get married, and have kids?”. The disappearance of Orly Elimeleh, a beautiful and wild 36 year-old army widow and former beauty queen, soon raises another troubling question for Daphna – why isn't anybody looking for her? This indifference towards Orly’s uncertain fate shakes Daphna to the core. Matan, the younger 34 year-old son and “black sheep” of Orly’s late husband’s family, seems to be the only one who shares Daphna’s concerns, which pushes her to step beyond her professional boundaries. As her faith both in herself and in everybody surrounding her is called into question, Daphna will have to do something she has managed to avoid her entire adult life : put her trust in a man.
Born out of wedlock early in the last century, Violette Leduc meets Simone de Beauvoir in postwar Saint-Germain-des-Près. An intense lifelong relationship develops between the two women authors, based on Violette's quest for freedom through writing and on Simone's conviction that she holds in her hands the destiny of an extraordinary writer.
A French-to-Spanish interpreter working for a food processing plant that hires seasonal workers from Guatemala is, at first determined to obey the sometimes excessive directives of the young boss, but she befriends the workers and tries to defend them against the exploitation they suffer.
Véronique Chambon (Sandrine Kiberlain), a single schoolteacher and Jean (Vincent Lindon), discover an unexpected bond that causes them to question the direction of their lives. They move in different social circles but their relationship develops and their lives begin gradually to unravel.
Jean-Claude Delsart, a 50 years-old bailiff, with his worn-out smile and heart, abandoned a long time ago the idea that life could give him pleasures. Until the day, he dares to push the doors of a tango lesson...
Natacha (25), a young single parent who works as a fast-food waitress, struggles to raise her 8-year-old son Enzo. Torn between a strong desire for independence and the comfort that her mother Irène unfailingly wants to provide for them, Natacha feels trapped. Her encounter with Walid, who is waiting to save enough money to pay for his crossing to England will open new horizons for her.
In Italy in the 90s, Zena, daughter of the Pope's doctor and granddaughter of a former fascist, is admitted to a reformatory, Villa Bianca, where deviances are “cured”, the last resort for the parents of Italian good society who wish to “repair” a rebellious generation. There, she meets and befriends three teenagers: a young nymphomaniac, Alfonso, a whimsical young man who intends to express his homosexuality, and Adriano, who has been mute since his mother's disappearance.
Averroès and Rosa Parks: two units of the Esquirol Hospital, which - like the Adamant - are part of the Paris Central Psychiatric Group. From individual interviews to «carer-patient» meetings, the filmmaker focuses on showing a form of psychiatry that continually strives to make room for and rehabilitate the patients’ words. Little by little, each one eases open the door to their world. Within an increasingly worn-out health system, how can the forsaken be given a place among others.
Sabri Lahlali, the assistant principal of a local high school, is ready to do anything to ensure that his son, who is about to take his high school diploma, has the ideal academic record. But he doesn't know how far his enterprise will take him.
Nassim, a 16-year-old boy, is placed with a family in the suburbs following the death of his drug addict mother. But he refuses to integrate into the social setting that surrounds him. He invents another life for himself, similar to that of his mates at the big Parisian high school he goes to. There’s no reason for that to change. His two lives, his home life and his school life, must be kept separate at all costs.
The Adamant is a unique day-care centre. A floating structure located on the Seine in the heart of Paris, it welcomes adults suffering from mental disorders, offering the kind of care that grounds them in time and space and helps them to recover or keep up their spirits. The team running it tries to resist the deterioration and dehumanisation of psychiatry as best as they can.
