Adèle Haenel
On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the 18th century, an artist is commissioned to paint a young woman’s wedding portrait.
Arnaud, facing an uncertain future and a dearth of choices in a small French coastal town, meets and falls for the apocalyptic-minded Madeleine, who joins an army boot camp to learn military and survival skills to prepare for the upcoming environmental collapse. Intrigued and excited by Madeleine’s wild ideas, Arnaud signs up for the boot camp himself. They soon realize that the boot camp is harder than they’d imagined, but the experience nonetheless cements them together as the couple continues to explore their young love.
Jenny, a young doctor who feels guilty after a young woman she refused to see winds up dead a few days later, decides to find out who the girl was, after the police can’t identify the young woman.
Al, a young man from a modest background is about to marry his boss’ daughter, along with succeeding him as the head of a car dealership. One night, while coming back from his bachelor party, he is guilty of a hit-and-run accident, urged by his two childhood friends present in the car. The next day, gnawed with guilt, Al decides to inquire about his victim. What he does not know is that Juliette, a young woman, has witnessed the entire accident from her balcony.
Set during a sultry summer in a French suburb, Marie is desperate to join the local pool’s synchronized swimming team, but is her interest solely for the sake of sport or for a chance to get close to Floriane, the bad girl of the team? Sciamma, and the two leads, capture the uncertainty of teenage sexuality with a sympathetic eye in this delicate drama of the angst of coming-of-age.
Paris, in the early 1990s: a group of young activists is desperately tied to finding the cure against an unknown lethal disease. They target the pharmaceutical labs that are retaining potential cures, and multiply direct actions, with the hope of saving their lives as well as the ones of future generations.
There’s drama aplenty for the travelling theatre company Chekhov Cabaret. The actors share the good times and the bad as a nomadic tribe where work and private life always mingle. They don’t mince words, these obstreperous actors with a sardonic sense of humour. Theatre always comes first.
Detective Yvonne is the widow of police chief Santi, a local hero in a town on the French Riviera. When she learns he was in fact a crooked cop, she tries to right his wrongs. Crossing paths with Antoine, a victim of Santi, sets off a series of wild events.
Paris 2011. Alex is 27. He’s lives off dealing and pays the debts of his brother, Isaac, who after being his support has now become dead weight. When his cousin announces he’s going to open a restaurant in Tel Aviv, Alex imagines he can join him and change his life. Set on emigrating, Alex has to find money, leave his beloved Paris, end his complicated love life, drop his destructive brother and find his way.
One hot afternoon in the south of France, several paths are converging towards a tragic conclusion. Those involved are: Stéphane and Luigi, two cousins who have just emerged from adolescence; Georges, a retired old man; Amélie, Luigi’s girlfriend; and Amélie’s mother Anne. Little do they know how their lives, scarred by fear, humiliation and weariness, will become intertwined and propel them to a terrible outcome…