Social & External
The people behind it
René Dary
Bébé
In this play on the symmetry of black and white, Robinet leaves home in his bright new suit for a stroll through a blackening industrial landscape. (MoMA)
Robinet brings down the house when he unleashes himself on Mimi Kratzfuss , an attractive opera singer, during a music hall performance.
A Blue Soldier and a Yellow Soldier play a board game trying to outwit each other, struggling for control over a piece of land. The Farmer who belongs to the land is not allowed to play and must pick a side. As the fighting escalates, what side does she choose?
The Misleading Widow is a 1919 silent film comedy starring Billie Burke as Betty Taradine. It was based on the 1917 stage play Billeted by F. Tennyson Jesse and H.M. Harwood. The film was produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed through Paramount Pictures. It appears to be a lost film.
When Gregoire and Lola go on a beach holiday to the idyllic Skagen, they don't know yet that the trip will be the end of their marriage. Gregoire may be wealthy, but he is many years older and several pounds heavier than his young wife, whose beauty makes all the male holiday guests turn their necks. Baron Plessen falls in love with Lola, and she quickly becomes fond of the idea of replacing her corpulent husband with a handsome nobleman. Together, they plan to push Gregoire out of the picture. The preserved material is a fragment.
A young man fakes his identity to impress a girl.
A club man's country jaunt with friends leads to a breach of promise suit by a landlady.
A henpeck man inherits a fortune and starts a club for women-haters.
Abraham Cadabra, an unconfident young man buys a magic book and top hat in the hope of using magic to impress the girl of his dreams, Penelope Predicament. However, when he meets her for a date, he discovers that his rival, Jock Strong has beaten him to it. Abraham tries to use magic to win Penelope over, but magic may not be the solution.
Using every known means of transportation, several savants from the Geographic Society undertake a journey through the Alps to the Sun which finishes under the sea.
A bumbling tramp desires to build a home with a young woman, yet is thwarted time and time again by his lack of experience and habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time...
Six burglars separately break into the Vickers mansion on Long Island to loot the safe but catch each other in the act. They all pretend to be members of the household when locked in by a well meaning police officer.
Eight very different couples deal with their love lives in various loosely interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London.
During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnny Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.
A gold prospector in Alaska struggles to survive the elements and win the heart of a dance hall girl.
A wiley street vendor flees London in search of the American dream promised by his late father, but he can’t find it anywhere.
Professor Barbenfouillis and five of his colleagues from the Academy of Astronomy travel to the Moon aboard a rocket propelled by a giant cannon. Once on the lunar surface, the bold explorers face the many perils hidden in the caves of the mysterious planet.
In Marseilles a skilled pizza delivery boy Daniel who drives a scooter finally has his dreams come true. He gets a taxi license. Caught by the police for a huge speed infraction, he will help Emilien, a loser inspector who can't drive, on the track of German bank robbers, so he doesn't lose his license and his dream job.
Samy moves from the underdeveloped crime-ridden French suburb to the riches of Neuilly.
This Surrealist film, with a title referencing the Communist Manifesto, strings together short incidents based on the life of director Luis Buñuel. Presented as chance encounters, these loosely related, intersecting situations, all without a consistent protagonist, reach from the 19th century to the 1970s. Touching briefly on subjects such as execution, pedophilia, incest, and sex, the film features an array of characters, including a sick father and incompetent police officers.
François Marsault, a war veteran, makes the most of his retirement alongside his wife Annie. Authoritarian and ruthless, François rules his family with an iron fist — but when he discovers that his esteemed wife cheated on him 40 years ago, he files for divorce and confronts her former lover, who lives in the French Riviera.
Fiona visits Paris for the first time to assist her myopic Aunt Martha. Catastrophes ensue, mainly involving Dom, a homeless man who has yet to have an emotion or thought he was afraid of expressing.
At 55, Anne is finally enjoying her freedom after her children leave home. But everything changes when her 23-year-old daughter, Louise, moves back in with her after a professional and romantic failure. And to make matters worse, her son, Théo, announces that she's going to be a grandmother! Anne realizes that life never goes as planned and that, at any age, we are still learning to grow up.
38-year-old Alice has everything to become the next editor-in-chief of Rebelle magazine except for her uptight image. But when the young and charming Balthazar, barely 20, crosses Alice's path, she realizes that he holds the key to her promotion.
A pompous grocer’s assistant in Marseille annoys a visiting film crew so much that they prank him with a phony acting contract; believing it to be real, the “schpountz” heads to Paris for his new career.
Aspiring filmmakers Mel Funn, Marty Eggs and Dom Bell go to a financially troubled studio with an idea for a silent movie. In an effort to make the movie more marketable, they attempt to recruit a number of big name stars to appear, while the studio's creditors attempt to thwart them.
Ricky Gervais tackles life, death and the state of the world in a brutally honest special that spares no topic, even his own mortality.
For his final film, Jacques Tati takes his camera to the circus, where the director himself serves as master of ceremonies. Though it features many spectacles, including clowns, jugglers, acrobats, contortionists, and more, Parade also focuses on the spectators, making this stripped-down work a testament to the communion between audience and entertainment.
With his signature pitch-black sense of humor, Ricky Gervais takes the stage at the London Palladium in this provocative stand-up comedy special.
After literally swimming across the Atlantic Ocean, an Englishman takes a country trip across Canada on a railcar.
Mr. Bean wins a trip to Cannes where he unwittingly separates a young boy from his father and must help the two reunite. On the way he discovers France, bicycling and true love, among other things.
In his first special in seven years, Ricky Gervais slings his trademark snark at celebrity, mortality and a society that takes everything personally.
The Golden Ball is a wonderful children's film that tells of a young boy's dream of being a soccer player. Whenever a match is broadcast live in the village of Makono, Bandian and his brother keep their ears to the transistor radio, spinning a picture of the game from the announcer's commentary much as they fantasize themselves on the field. A gift of a real soccer ball, which Bandian paints gold, like a magical object involves him in a series of adventures which bring him in reach of his dream, but which also require him to make difficult choices.
Monsieur Cinema, a hundred years old, lives alone in a large villa. His memories fade away, so he engages a young woman to tell him stories about all the movies ever made.
Valentin D is a hot designer architect who claims to be an orphan because he is too ashamed to admit he is the son of working-class scrap metal merchants from the north of France.
A failed 40 year old comedian wants to organize the first Black protests in France but meeting with other French celebrities of the Black community will make it a whole new adventure.
Claude and Marie Verneuil face a new crisis. The four spouses of their daughters, David, Rachid, Chao and Charles decided to leave France for various reasons. Here they are imagining their lives elsewhere.
Ricky Gervais dishes out controversial takes on political correctness and oversensitivity in a taboo-busting comedy special about the end of humanity.
