A French Youth

Follows the defiance of two art institutions in the Caribbean: one closed but squatted by artists, the other fighting to stay open. Against the backdrop of political strife, Haitian and Guadeloupean artists grapple with the concept of freedom in their battle to preserve their spaces.

A group of children are encouraged to play in a park by two men. Some play a skipping game. One of the other children refuses and eventually runs away. Another child is fascinated by the camera and stares at it throughout, even when encouraged by one of the men to play. IN the background, traffic passes and pedestrians stroll past behind a railing on an upper level. The children wear sunhats, indicating the weather is very sunny.

The film is about the band Stockholms Negrer, but also about what formed their music, about being Swedish but still being viewed as an outsider.

A legendary city everyone dreams of visiting, Paris has retained all its authenticity, resembling more a collection of villages rather than one major metropolis. From the Eiffel Tower to Notre Dame de Paris, we discover the French capital's most emblematic monuments, and the vibrant life of its boulevards

Director Djamel Kelfaoui pays tribute to the great singer Cheb Hasni, king of sentimental raï, who became cult in Algeria and beyond its borders, and who was murdered in the street in September 1994 in Oran, at the age of 26. Unique and last interview filmed a few months before the assassination of the singer considered the king of “raï love” or “sentimental song”. Cheb Hasni had recorded more than 150 cassettes during his career. His memory remains very alive in the Maghreb and Arab world and its diaspora throughout the world. A transgenerational icon, he will be posthumously decorated with the National Merit medal at the rank of Achir.

A family portrait in which the director profiles his grandmother, Odette Robert. Eustache includes in the film the conditions of its production — he is seated at the table with her, pours her some whiskey, speaks with the camera operator, manipulates the clapboard at the head and tail of the reels, and even takes a phone call. Robert, who was seventy-one, speaks rapidly and tells the story of her life, starting from her early childhood in villages in the Bordeaux region of France. A shorter version of the film ("Odette Robert") was edited in 1980 to be broadcast on television on TF1. The complete film only gained exposure in 2002, when it was salvaged by Boris Eustache, Thierry Lounas, João Bénard da Costa, Jean-Marie Straub, and Pedro Costa.

Artfully erotic nudity with plush, glamorous décor and sensual, atmospheric lighting: The Crazy Horse, in the French capital’s well-heeled eighth district, has been delighting audiences for 70 years with its special brand of classy Parisian cabaret.

Boys on Film presents ten encounters from across the globe, where the dangerous allure of a risky attraction yields emotional results — proving that the age-old adage of taking the plunge is as relevant — and sexy — as ever before. The 10 short films are: My Uncle's Friend [O Amigo do Meu Tio] (2021); Budapest, Closed City [Budapest, zárt város] (2021); Eden (2020); Chaperone (2022); Break Me [Knus meg] (2018); By His Will [שעשני כרצונו] (2021); Red Ants Bite (2019); Jim (2022); Hornbeam (2022); Too Rough (2022).

In barely a century, French peasants have seen their world profoundly turned upside down. While they once made up the vast majority of the country, today they are only a tiny minority and are faced with an immense challenge: to continue to feed France. From the figure of the simple tenant farmer described by Emile Guillaumin at the beginning of the 20th century to the heavy toll paid by peasants during the Great War, from the beginnings of mechanization in the inter-war period to the ambivalent figure of the peasant under the Occupation, From the unbridled race to industrialization in post-war France to the realization that it is now necessary to rethink the agricultural model and invent the agriculture of tomorrow, the film looks back at the long march of French peasants.

“La Zerda and the songs of oblivion” (1982) is one of only two films made by the Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, with “La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua” (1977). Powerful poetic essay based on archives, in which Assia Djebar – in collaboration with the poet Malek Alloula and the composer Ahmed Essyad – deconstructs the French colonial propaganda of the Pathé-Gaumont newsreels from 1912 to 1942, to reveal the signs of revolt among the subjugated North African population. Through the reassembly of these propaganda images, Djebar recovers the history of the Zerda ceremonies, suggesting that the power and mysticism of this tradition were obliterated and erased by the predatory voyeurism of the colonial gaze. This very gaze is thus subverted and a hidden tradition of resistance and struggle is revealed, against any exoticizing and orientalist temptation.

Ma traversée is a personal quest, filmed over 20 years, recounting the racial issues and privileges that have punctuated the filmmaker’s life in three French-speaking societies: Guadeloupe, France and Quebec. From her own story emerges the broader narrative of colonization, colorism, assimilation, integration and the social benefits of “race” and their impact even today. Brutalized by police officers in Montreal in December 2017 in front of witnesses, the filmmaker takes a step back to understand this gesture, which speaks to the social interpretation of skin color.

A warm, attentive chronicle of everyday life in a small Algerian town, with the backdrop of the inhabitants' development and beautification of one of the neighborhoods. We meet an amateur mechanic, a retired man from France, a doctor, old women and young men. Everyone plays... in front of the camera of one of the youngsters. Even when the riots in Kabylia disrupt the course of daily life in the Cité des Martyrs.

A voyage to the center of the thought of Michel Foucault (1926-1984), a tireless explorer of the margins, a brilliant and atypical thinker, through excerpts from his books and lectures, and the use of images that resonate with them.

The horses in Denys Colomb Daunant’s dream poem are the white beasts of the marshlands of the Camargue in South West France. Daunant was haunted by these creatures. His obsession was first visualized when he wrote the autobiographical script for Albert Lamorisse’s award-winning 1953 film White Mane. In this short the beauty of the horses is captured with a variety of film techniques and by Jacques Lasry’s beautiful electronic score.

In 1892, Ellis Island, in New York Bay, became the main gateway to the United States for immigrants arriving increasingly from Europe. The story of immigration to the United States from 1892 to 1954, an enthralling polyphonic narrative that embraces both small and great history.