Marianne is a shy 16-yeard-old who lives with her mostly absent mother, a domineering older brother, and two younger sisters of whom she largely takes responsibility for caring.  Left behind at high school where she's told her grades are too poor to continue, Marianne is soon lured out of her shell by three vivacious neighbourhood teens.  Enthralled by their bravado and brash energy, Marianne quickly adopts their flashier look and adapts to theri bolder and often reckless behaviour, making both foolish and brave choices as she struggles towards independence.

Academy Award winner Juiliette Binoche gives one of the finest performances of her career in this dazzling and emotionally rich debut feature from Italian wunderkind Piero Messina, who previously worked as the assistant director on Paolo Sorrentino's Oscar-winning The Great Beauty.  In the vast rooms of a beautiful Sicilian villa, Anna (Binoche) receives an unexpected guest.  Twenty-something Jeanne (the gorgeous Lou de Laâge) has arrived from France, declaring herself to be the girlfriend of Anna's son, Giuseppe, who has invited her to the house to spend Easter together.  But this is news to Anna, and Giuseppe is not yet there.  Despite the disruption to her routine, Anna invites the young guest to stay, and as the two women await Giuseppe's arrival, they slowly begin to form a connection.  Jeanne, dislocated and a little mystified at first, gradually gives in to the charms of the volcanic island.  She swims in the nearby lake and makes new friends, while Anna – watched over by a long-time family friend – comes out of her shell.  Yet still, her son's absence remains unexplained......

Days of Glory tels the story of the unsung heroes of the French World War II defensive.

Despite never having set foot on French soil before, Saïd, Abdelkader, Messaoud and Yassir enlisted in the army along with 130,000 other "indigenous soldiers" to fight for their imperial masters.  But instead of praise and gratitude for their selfless aid, the Algerian soldiers faced a double attack: on one side, their Axis enemies, and on the other, the racist ignorance of their commanding officers.

Forgotten by history and denied their rightful place amongst the heroes of war, Days of Glory tells the story of the French-Algerian defensive, and shows the true extent of their sacrifice.

Academy Award nominee Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient, I've Loved You So Long) stars as Julia Jarmond, an American journalist living in Paris with her French husband and teenage daughter.  When Julia is commissioned to write an article about the notorious 1942 Vel d'Hiv Roundup, she stumbles upon a secret which will change her life, and that of her family, forever.

Julia's research draws a connection between the family apartment that she and her husband are renovating, and its former residents, the Jewish Starzynski family.  Resolving to discover what became of them, she finds herself focussing on the fate of their daugher, Sarah, in an investigation that takes her across France and even back to America.  The more Julia discovers, the more she discovers about Bertrand's family, about France and, finally, about herself.

Writer/director Ruben Alves' enormously charming, semi-autobiographical Parisian comedy hit is the story of a loving, hardworking married coule whose long-held dream of returning to their homeland finally comes true – only to be secretely undermined by their overly dependent friends and neighbours.

Maria (Rita Bianco) and José (Joaquim de Almeida) emigrated from Portugal 30 years ago.  Ever since, they have lived in the modest ground floor lodgings of a chic apartment building in Paris, raising their now adult daughter and teenage son, and becoming utterly indispensable to all around them.

When José learns he has inherited the family winery and the couple's dream of returning to Portugal is now possible, they are elated – but struggle with how to tell their loved ones.  However, word of the big news spreads anyway, and soon their family, neighbours, friends and employers are scrambling behind the scenes to find ways to prevent them from leaving......

The Volcano sees divorced couple Alain (Danny Boon) and Valérie (Valérie Bonneton), whose mutual hatred knows no bounds, travelling on the same flight t their grown-up daughter's wedding on an idyllic island in Greece.  The trouble is the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland has just erupted, grounding all flights.  Alain and Valérie must make it to theri daughter's wedding, so they team up – or try their best to!  And hit the road together for an epic journey from Paris to Greece by car, truck, boat, police car, light plane and foot.

Two good-hearted shepherds from Taboulistan, a tiny country in Central Asia that no-one has ever heard of are entrusted with a special intelligence operation: destroying the Eiffel Tower!  More naïve than evil the duo has to travel through the most hostile territory imaginable to meet their objective: France!  A France very different from the West they had heard described: Corsican nationalists, over-zealous policemen, dishonest taxi drivers, violent sports fans, crabby employees, unfriendly waiters, Kafkaesque administrations and medical malpractice......they are spared nothing!  Luckily they meet Marianne, a young and pretty reporter who mistakes them for illegal aliens and helps show them another face of France......a hospitable, magnificent and generous land where the living is easy.  Vive la France !

Dolph Springer (Reno 911's Jack Plotnick) awakens one morning to find he has lost the sole love of his live – his dog, Paul.  Desperate to reunite with his best friend and to set things right, Dolph embarks on a journey which spirals into the realm of the absurd.  On his quest, he drastically alters the lives of several severely bizarro characters, including a promiscuous pizza girl (Entourage's Alexis Dziena), a mentally unstable, jogging-addicted neighbour, an opportunistic French-Mexican gardener, an eccentric pet detective (Steve Little of HBO's Eastbound And Down) and most mysterious of all, an enigmatic pony-tailed guru, Master Chang (William Fichtner) who imparts his teachings to Dolph on how to metaphysically reconnect with his pet.  From fearless cinematic surrealist Quentin Dupieux, the director behind the head-exploding Rubber, Wrong is a wholly original and hilariously hallucinatory universe all its own.

Like millions of others worldwide, 40-year-old François Nouel is a Tour de France fan.  Unbeatable on anything to do with the race, he spends as much time as he can on his bike, to escape from a disappointing everyday existence.  At work, he's restricted to bicycle displays.  And things at home are no better: his son thinks he's a loser and his wife berates him for being a coward.  So when his wife discovers on the eve of his holidays that he's been volunteered to work on the Tour, it's too much: she tells him she wants a divorce and leaves with his son.  Then he meets Rémi Pletinckx, a depressive former sports manager who's also at the end of his rope.  Under Pletinckx's influence, François makes up his mind to live his childhood dream: to do the Tour de France.  The race begins tomorrow.  If he leaves now, one day ahead of the pros, he could even get to Paris before them.

After hiding his loot and getting thrown in jail, Ruby (Jean Reno – The Professional, Mission: Impossible, Ronin), a brooding outlaw, encounters Quentin (Gérard Depardieu – The Closet, Cyrano de Bergerac, Green Card), a dim-witted and garrulous giant who befriends him and botches his solo escape, forcing them to make a break for it together.

Unable to shake the cumbersome and clumsily helpful Quentin, Ruby pursues his former partners in crime to avenge the murder of the woman he loved, with the firm intention of getting to his hidden money before they do.

A hilarious buddy movie from one of France's most brilliant writer/directors Tais Toi ! blends fast-paced action with vaudevillian comedy to terrific effect.

Alex and Laetitia are in love.............so what's the problem?

Alex loves Laetitia.  She is beautiful, funny, sparkling, radiant and she loves Alex.  She even adores Jacques, Alex's best friend and publisher.  In essence, she's the light and love of Alex's life, the future mother of his children, his reason for living, but.........Alex prefers her to keep her own place.  His official line is that they can live together, sure, "but not in the same apartment"!

As Alex desperately attempts to dissuade his gorgeous girlfriend from getting too close, he cooks up a series of situations preventing Laetitia from raising the idea of co-habitation, but which of the two stubborn lovers is going to give in first?

A lighthearted examination of modern relationships, Tonight I'll Sleep at Yours shines a bright line on the absurdities of commitment-phobia.

Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, and selected as Belgium's official Academy Award entry for Best Foreign Language Film, The Brand New Testament is original and hilarious.  God exists!  He lives in Brussels with his wife and daughter, Ea, and he's a real jerk to them both.  He lives in an apartment and spends most of his time in a giant office where he controls the world through an old computer.  His son, JC, whom you may have heard of, made his escape long ago.  When Ea gets fed up with her fathre, she decides to leave the nest, find her own apostles and write her own brand new testament.  But before she makes her escape, Ea hacks God's computer and leaks to the entire world their date of death by SMS.  Her deed causes worldwide panic and God must scramble to fix it before humanity finds it has no need of him.
 

The French Resistance came in all shapes and sizes!

From the furtive imagination of writer/director Yann Samuell comes the smash-hit adaptation of Louis Pergaud's classic 1912 novel (a book long on the French curriculum and reprinted over thirty times) about the rivalry between children from two villages.

A gang of bys, aged 7 to 14 led by the intrepid Lebrac (Vincent Bres) are at war with the kids of the neighbouring township, their sworn enemies.  In this uncompromising battle of honour and allegiances that's been kept alive for generations, humiliation is the most fearsome defeat and no tactic is too extreme – even if it necessitates fighting naked or accepting the help offered by Lanterne (Salome Lemire) – a girl!  She's the gang's new recruit, a tomboy full of panache and ingenuity – and it seems victory could now just be a skipping stone's throw away.  But it's not easy to wage war without getting caughty by your parents..........

A huge success at the French box office in late 2011 with over 1.5 million admissions, The War of the Buttons is a cheeky family comedy about integration, independence and innocence, about conflicts big and small, and growng up.

The award-winning new film by acclaimed director Catherine Corsini, La Belle Saison (Summertime) is a luminous and evocative romance set in the turbulent '70s, powerfully depicting a story of love, duty and the courage required to pursue happiness no matter the cost.

1971.  Delphine (Izïa Higelin), a twenty-something farm girl of humble means, takes a huge step by packing up and moving to Paris, searching for independence and a life beyond the duties of her rural upbringing.  It's not long before she is drawn to dynamic thirty-something Carold (the extraordinary Cécile de France), who is actively involved in the emerging feminist movement.  Carole lives with her boyfriend, but the two women quickly fall head over heels, and become inseperable.  Their bliss is interrupted, however, when a family emergency forces Delphine back to the farm and to her mother (Noémie Lvovsky), and Carole decides to follow her.  There, the couple has to face a far different reality...

Featuring stunning production design that indelibly captures both the beauty of the French regions and the vibrant streets of Paris in the '70s, the film invites audiences to bask in the glow of a fledgling yet all-consuming passion, in all its throes.  With radiant performances and impeccable direction, La Belle Saison is French cimena at its absolute finest.

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Set during the turmoil and despair of World War II, A Bag of Marbles (also known as Un Sac De Billes) tells the remarkable true tale of two young French Jewish boys, aged 10 and 13, as they attempt the perilous journey to the southern Free Zone, to find relief and freedom from the impending Nazi occupation.  With the aid of a helpful priest the boys are driven to step out of the shadow of evil and use their wits and charm to remain one step ahead of their persecutors, in order to survive.

Based on Joseph Joffo's memoir and directed by award winning filmmaker Christian Duguay, A Bag Of Marbles is a moving story of brotherly love, tenacity and youthful reilience.

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A riveting edge-of-the-seat thriller from French master Jean-Pierre Melville (Le Samouraï), capturing the cool charm of 70s Paris, Le Cercle Rouge is a quintessential crime caper considered a "classic cornerstone of the heist genre from a master of the nouvelle vague".

Reformed French criminal Corey (Alain Delon, Le Samouraï) is dragged back into the seedy underworld after a chance encouter with escaped murderer Vogel (Gian Maria Volonté, A Fistful of Dollars).  Joined by the mysterious Jansen (Yves Montand, Jean de Florette), a former policeman with a chequered past, they plot a complex jewellery heist involving a wealthy mob boss.  With Police Commissioner Mattei (André Bourvil, The Longest Day) on their case, he is determined to not only track down Vogel, but bust open the entire operation.

Desecrated graves.  Exhumed corpses which have been placed inside show homes.  The same ritual each time: a woman, a man and a teenager who were strangers in life, make up a new family in death.  In the middle of these bodies, a photo of Paul Maisonneuve.  A police legend, he is compelled to return to work and team up with Sandra Winckler, one of his old students from the police academy.
 

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A horrific discovery in a small town nestled high in the French Pyrenees begins to unravel a dark mystery that has been hidden for years.  On an unforgiving winter morning, a group of workers discover the headless body of a horse, hanging suspended from the edge of a frozen cliff.  Commandant Martin Servaz starts investigating and soon discovers a dark story of madness and revenge.

Lisa (Diane Kruger) and Julien (Vincent Lindon) have the perfect existence: still passionately in love, with a beautiful young son and a wonderful life ahead of them.  But their lives are shattered when, out of the blue, Lisa is arrested for the brutal murder of a colleague.

Found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison, the couple's world collapses into a frenzy of fear and paranoia.  Julien, convinced of his wife's innocence, embarks on a mission so perilous it will risk the lives of everyone he loves: he will stop at nothing to daringly break her out of prison.

With the police tracking his every move, and only his own certainty of his wife's innocence to rely on, how far will Julien go to save her?  And at what cost?

Inspired by true events, The Connection is a stylish 1970s crime thriller that follows Pierre Michel (Academy Award winner Jean Dujardin), a young magistrate leading an unrelenting battle to crush 'The French Connection', one of the most notorious heroin smuggling operations in history.

Despite the danger, he fearlessly and ruthlessly leads a one-man campaign against charismatic kingpin Gaëtin Zampa (Gilles Lellouche), the untouchable leader of the syndicate.  As Pierre and his elite task force boldly coordinate drug raids and defeating arrests, his fearless campaign starts to rattle the seemingly unshakable godfather.  As Zampa mounts his bloody retaliation, Michel must decide beween continuing to wage his dangerous war or ensuring the safety of his family.

Stylish, gripping and spectacular, The Connection is the European flipside to the crime classic The French Connection.

The Returned is a cult supernatural French thriller – deeply disturbing and heartbreaking at times, yet internationally acclaimed as "mesmerising television" (New York Times).  Presented here are both Series 1 (awarded International Emmy for Best Drama Series in 2013) and Series 2.

Both series are set in a hauntingly beautiful alpine village visited and ultimately overrun by the newly risen dead.

In series 1, men, women and children find themselves in a state of confusion, trying to return to their homes.  Yet they have been dead for several years, and no-one is expecting them back.

The living are thrown into a state of turmoil by the return of friends and relatives, and it seems they are not the only ones to have returned from the dead.

Their arrival coincides with a series of gruesome murders which bear a chilling resemblence to the work of a serial killer from the past.

In series 2, six months have passed since the Returned gathered one night, before disappearing into the mountains.  Although nothing has been heard of them since, rumours are circulating about the return of the dead.  Witnesses stay silent or are not taken seriously, until a stranger arrives in town, and he seems to know much more than he lets on.

Then a new wave of resurrections occurs.............

The Morels are a typical family living in Lyon, France.  But when their 17-year-old daughter, Léa (Camille Razat) fails to return home after a night out celebrating her birthday, the Morels are unexpectedly thrown into their worst nightmare.  Mother Florence (The Returned's Alix Poisson) tries to remain strong for her other children and hopeful that her daughter will return home safely, while father Julien (Pierre François Martin-Laval) begins an investigation of his own.

As the police-led Commander Bertrand Molina (François-Xavier Demaison) and his lieutenant, Camille Guérin (Alice Pol) desperately search to find the missing teen, shocking truths begin to come to light, revealing secrets hidden by Léa and those closest to her.

It is a year since Anne Visage lost the presidential election, and the current President, Alain Marjorie, faces two disasters: one personal and one political.

His delicate and unpredictable wife, Elisabeth, has a car accident.  The passenger, her lover, is killed instantly.  Benoit Hussan, the Prime Minister and a friend of the couple covers up the accident, but he is then himself caught up in a political and financial scandal.  Hussan has to resign.

We now have a political crisis and the President Marjorie calls on the services of Simon Kapita, man in the shadows from the first season.  Kapita has not only to deal with the media but also to divert the manoeuvers by the Opposition to destabilise the government.  His sense of strategy and communication are put to the test, especially as a new scandal threatens to erupt.........

Once again, the storylines in Les Hommes de l'Ombre are exceptionally-well managed, with a vibrant screenplay and brilliant performances by the actors, notably Carole Bouquet, in the role of Elisabeth.

Jean Renoir's heralded masterpiece Une Partie de Campagne almost never saw the light of day.  Now, Renoir's adaptation of Guy Maupassant's short story is recognised as one of the filmmaker's finest creations.

On an idyllic day in the country, a family, consisting of a father, mother, their daughter Henriette and her fiancé Anatole gather for a restful picnic.  Against all her best judgement, Henriette finds herself succumbing to an all-too-brief romantic encounter which leaves her subtly yet undeniably changed.

In Une Partie de Campagne, Renoir creates a lyrical and bittersweet hymn to the beauty and majesty of nature.

Yann Kermadec (François Cluzet, The Intouchables) gets the chance of a lifetime when he is unexpectedly given the opportunity to race in the gruelling, non-stop, solo round-the-world yacht race, the Vendee Globe.  Facing the rough open sea and fierce competition, Yann battles to the lead, but when near disaster forces him out of the race for repairs, he encounters a whole new set of problems upon his re-entry.  With the race on the line, the horizon growing stormy, and his home life in France becoming increasingly stressed and distant, Yann is forced to consider everything he knows about life, relationships and the lure of the open sea.

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Résumé :

​Fille de l'esclave Abena violée par un marin anglais à bord d'un vaisseau négrier, Tituba, née à la Barbade, est initiée aux pouvoirs surnaturels par Man Yaya, guérisseuse et faiseuse de sorts. Son mariage avec John Indien l'entraîne à Boston, puis au village de Salem au service du pasteur Parris.

C'est dans l'atmosphère hystérique de cette petite communauté puritaine qu'a lieu le célèbre procès des sorcières de Salem en 1692. Tituba est arrêtée, oubliée dans sa prison jusqu'à l'amnistie générale qui survient deux ans plus tard. Là s'arrête l'histoire. Maryse Condé la réhabilite, l'arrache à cet oubli auquel elle avait été condamnée et, pour finir, la ramène à son pays natal, la Barbade au temps des Nègres marrons et des premières révoltes d'esclaves.

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Résumé/Lodiciquarte/Quatrième de Couverture/Plat Verso:

Deux histoires. Deux histoires de jeunes gens de notre temps, repus, mais affamés et polis, mais enragés, qui préfèrent encore prendre le risque de se tromper de vie, plutôt que de n'en vivre aucune.

Mathilde a 24 ans. Elle a abandonné ses études d'histoire de l'art pour un petit boulot sans intérêt et vit en colocation avec deux sœurs jumelles. Elle dit qu'elle est heureuse, mais est toujours obligée de boire pour s'en souvenir. Un jour, elle oublie son sac à main dans un café. Un homme le lui rend la semaine suivante. Plusieurs mois plus tard et à cause de cet homme justement, elle envoie tout balader et décide de changer de vie.

Yann a 26 ans. Il est aussi diplômé qu'on puisse l'être, mais n'a pas trouvé de travail. En attendant des jours meilleurs, il est vendeur dans un magasin d'électroménager Hi-Tech. Il vit en couple avec Mélanie et ne dit pas qu'il est malheureux, mais souvent, quand il traverse la Seine, il s'imagine qu'il saute et se voit en noyé. Un soir, alors qu'il est seul, il rend service à son voisin de palier. Pour le remercier ce dernier l'invite à dîner. Le lendemain matin, il envoie tout balader et décide de changer de vie.

Biographie:

Anna Gavalda est une autrice française née en 1970 à Boulogne-Billancourt, en France. Elle est connue pour ses romans et nouvelles qui capturent les émotions et les relations humaines avec sensibilité et authenticité.

Gavalda a étudié la littérature à la Sorbonne, où elle a obtenu une licence en lettres modernes. Après ses études, elle a travaillé dans le domaine de la communication et de la publicité pendant plusieurs années avant de se consacrer à l'écriture.

Elle a connu un succès fulgurant avec la publication de son premier recueil de nouvelles intitulé "Je voudrais que quelqu'un m'attende quelque part" en 1999. Ce livre a remporté un grand succès auprès du public et de la critique, devenant rapidement un best-seller en France.

Depuis lors, Anna Gavalda a publié plusieurs romans à succès, dont "Ensemble, c'est tout" (adapté au cinéma en 2007), "Je l'aimais", "La Consolante" et "Billie". Ses histoires touchantes et authentiques explorent les thèmes de l'amour, de la solitude, de l'amitié et de la résilience.

Le style d'écriture d'Anna Gavalda est caractérisé par sa simplicité et sa sincérité, capturant avec finesse les émotions et les dilemmes auxquels sont confrontés ses personnages. Ses récits sont souvent ancrés dans la réalité quotidienne, abordant des sujets universels et touchant un large public.

Les œuvres d'Anna Gavalda ont été traduites dans de nombreuses langues et elle est considérée comme l'une des autrices contemporaines les plus populaires en France. Son talent narratif et son approche chaleureuse de l'écriture ont conquis de nombreux lecteurs à travers le monde.

En plus de ses romans et nouvelles, Anna Gavalda a également écrit pour la jeunesse, publiant des ouvrages tels que "35 kilos d'espoir" et "La Vie en mieux".

À 50 ans,Bernard se voyait bien parti pour mener la même vie tranquille jusqu'à la fin de ses jours.Mais parfois l existence réserve des surprises...
De catastrophe en loi des séries,  l effet domino peut balayer en un clin d'oeil le château de cartes de nos certitudes.Et le moins que l on puisse dire est que cet homme ordinaire ,sympathique au demeurant,  n était pas armé pour affronter ce qui l'attendait.
Buste Keaton post-moderne , il va devoir traverser ce roman drôle  et mélancolique  pour tenter de retrouver sa place dans un monde en crise.

Léa de Lonval, une courtisane de près de 50 ans, est la maîtresse  de Fred Paloux, mieux connu sous le nom de Chéri. À mesure qu' elle éprouve le manque de conviction croissant de son jeune amant , Léa ressent, avec un émerveillement desenchanté et la lucidité de l'amertume,les moindres effets d'une passion qui sera la dernière .
Pourtant, il suffira à Chéri d épouser la tendre et insignifiante Edmée pour comprendre que la rupture avec  Léa  ne va pas sans regrets.
La peinture intimiste et narquoise des milieux mondains,l'analyse de l' âme  féminine , les charmes cruels de la séduction, l'humour un peu triste de la romancière font de Chéri une des oeuvres les plus attachantes de Colette.
Sous la légèreté du ton, la verve du récit,  la notation amusée , une profonde mélancolie  gagne peu à peu,  s'étend aux êtres et aux choses , comme s' il ne devait y avoir de passion réelle qu'au déclin des amours

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