Bernard Eisenschitz

Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds — with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk — that it might be possible for him to take human form.

Aimless young Alexandre juggles his relationships with his girlfriend, Marie, and a casual lover named Veronika. Marie becomes increasingly jealous of Alexandre's fling with Veronika and as the trio continues their unsustainable affair, the emotional stakes get higher, leading to conflict and unhappiness.

The fascinating and tumultuous lives of Mikhail, Boris and Denis Kaufman (better known as Dziga Vertov) are the focus of this powerful documentary. Using rare archival footage from Russian state film archives and private collections, the brothers' lives and art are traced from Bialystok to Moscow, Paris, and Hollywood.

No synopsis available yet.

Written and directed by Hitchcock historian Noël Simsolo, this 2004 French television documentary explores the earliest years of Alfred Hitchcock's film career, beginning with his success in the production of The Lodger (1926) and following the filmmaker through his transition to sound films and his early thrillers.

Jilted on his wedding day, Laurent, a stage actor playing the role of the famous seducer Don Juan, cannot help but see his ex-fiancée in every women he meets. In an attempt to mend his broken heart and ego, he tries to seduce them all but none are receptive to his elaborate (and musical) advances. Meanwhile, at the theater, the leading lady quits and the production brings in Laurent’s ex-fiancée as the replacement.

Nastassia Philippovna finds herself juggling the affections of four men over the course of a single evening. One is her benefactor, the bourgeois Totsky. Another is the opportunistic Ganya, whom Totsky has promised 75,000 rubles if he will marry Nastassia. Rogozhin offers Nastassia 100,000 rubles for her hand. And the “idiot,” Prince Myshkin, loves Nastassia madly and vows to “save” her.

Thirty years old, a nothing job, a timid love affair: Rémi is a little at sea in his life. Until the day when he must share it with his double, another him, invasive and not so nice. Which one will be the true Rémi?

Perhaps it speaks to the sheer power and beauty of L’Atalante that 40 years after its initial butchered release, critics and fans still seek to piece together Vigo’s vision – and debate the choices involved in that process. Bernard Eisenschitz, who was involved with Luce Vigo (daughter of Jean Vigo) in the 1990 reconstruction of this masterwork, takes us into the raw materials by which this complex film was re-envisioned and continues to be analyzed and changed today. An important vision of film as a tradition of viewership, curation and exploration.

An interview with film Critic Bernard Eisenschitz discussing the progression of Ernst Lubitsch's career, from the director's beginning in German silents through CLUNY BROWN, the last film he saw to completion.

A porcelain table service and a painting from the 19th century pass from hand to hand and deteriorate over time, sealing the fate of different characters who cross paths in Paris.

While two theater groups rehearse plays by Aeschylus, two solitary individuals wander the Parisian streets hustling the populace for cash.

Born in Berlin in 1896, Lotte Eisner became famous for her passionate involvement in the world of both German and French cinema. In 1936, together with Henri Langlois, she founded the Cinémathèque Française with the goal of saving from destruction films, costumes, sets, posters, and other treasures of the 7th Art. A Jew exiled in Paris, she became a pillar of the capital's cultural scene, where she promoted German cinema.

An allegory of the Golem, a Jewish mythical creature personifying displacement and exile, this film tells the story of a woman (similar to the biblical Ruth) and her sisters, who are forced into exile after the death of their husbands. It is set in 1990s Paris, where the director was living in self-imposed exile following the ban on his 1982 documentary in Israel. The recurring theme of the film is migrations and unrooting, like the legendary Golem.

Whilst seeking out locations in the South of France for his next film, director Luc Moullet comes across a male corpse. He immediately decides to use this to his advantage. By swapping his passport with that of the dead man, Moullet hopes that the world will believe he is dead, thereby ensuring a renewed interest in his work. Unfortunately, the scheme backfires, since the dead man was someone rather important...

Five, even six, variations on a theme, commentary and interpretation of the same photograph. An exercise to tell and summarize the history of the Cinémathèque française.

Director Jean-Luc Godard reflects in this movie about his place in film history, the interaction of film industry and film as art, as well as the act of creating art.

Posthumous portrait of Chris Marker, the elusive French filmmaker- essayist, traveller, photographer and cat-lover. Two filmmakers, Jean-Marie Barbe and Arnaud Lambert, propose a chronological journey through his thoughts and cinematographic work: from the cartography of new political utopia in the 1950s, from Siberia to La Habana, to its relentless defeat, starting with Chile; from his review of cinéma-verité to the great television experience in "L'Héritage de la chouette", which traces a journey through classical Greece, organized into twelve words.

The man who leaves prepares his departure.

Two interconnected stories in the 1930s, one set in Berlin, the other in Palestine: Mania Vilbouchevich Shohat (1880-1961), called Tania, a Russian Jew and revolutionary, goes from Minsk to Palestine to live on a collective. She promotes feminism and laments a shift in the men from self-defense to aggression. Her friend, Else Lasker-Schuler (1869 - 1945), expressionist poet and German Jew, is in Berlin, writing, caring for her son, watching Hitler's movement take power. She goes to Jerusalem and imagines a park for Arab and Jew. Her poems, voiced from within, capture her experience. The film meditates on the violence at the root of Israel's birth: of the Nazis and of the Zionists.

A famous French filmmaker is hired by a major Hollywood producer to make a documentary on the state of post-Cold War Russia. The filmmaker, though, subverts the project by stubbornly remaining in France and casting himself as the title character of Dostoyevsky's "The Idiot," offering up a series of typically Godardian musings on art, politics, the nature of images and the future of cinema.

Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni, former editors at Cahiers du Cinema, interview their former colleagues and fellow travellers during the "Red Years" of the journal between 1968 and1973.

No synopsis available yet.

A young, enthusiastic girl named Ondine walks into an art bookstore, asking if she can do her school internship there. She isn’t very lucky, though: the bookseller is a grumpy, brusque woman who puts her to the test with a customer while spouting her disillusioned rants about the death of art and culture. Will Ondine manage to convince the woman to take her on for the internship?

Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds — with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk — that it might be possible for him to take human form.

No synopsis available yet.

No synopsis available yet.

Perhaps it speaks to the sheer power and beauty of L’Atalante that 40 years after its initial butchered release, critics and fans still seek to piece together Vigo’s vision – and debate the choices involved in that process. Bernard Eisenschitz, who was involved with Luce Vigo (daughter of Jean Vigo) in the 1990 reconstruction of this masterwork, takes us into the raw materials by which this complex film was re-envisioned and continues to be analyzed and changed today. An important vision of film as a tradition of viewership, curation and exploration.

A film by Bernard Eisenschitz.

A compilation of rushes, outtakes and on-location footage of Vigo during the shoot of Zero for Conduct, helping the viewer to better understand Vigo's original vision for his mini-epic of school rebellion.

Short by Bernard Eisenschitz

A short documentary in the Chaplin Today series about Chaplin's "Monsieur Verdoux." Includes an interview with Claude Chabrol, whose 1963 film "Landru" concerns the same serial killer that inspired Chaplin's film.

No synopsis available yet.

Wednesday July 31, 1968, almost six months after the start of the "Langlois affair" which saw the government attempt to oust the founder of the Cinémathèque française, triggering massive support from the biggest names in world cinema, Henri Langlois finally resumed possession of the hall of the Palais de Chaillot and celebrates his return with a tribute to Charlie Chaplin.