Micheline Presle

Inspired even as a boy by the Folies Bergere, the legendary Paris cabaret venue, couturier Jean-Paul Gaultier always wanted to stage a show there. "But what story can I tell?" he muses in this doc about the six months of preparation that went into the show. "Mine." Combining fashion with film, dance, theater, and unapologetic over-the-top-ness, the revue offers a 40-year career retrospective of the designer who is practically never spoken of without using the phrase enfant terrible. Notorious among cinephiles for his costumes for The Fifth Element and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover and among pop fans for Madonna's pointy cone brassiere, he also incorporated teddy bears and S&M fetish gear as design motifs. In the show, the fanciful and outrageous meets the naughtily witty (a skit sending up Vogue dragon lady Anna Wintour) and the poignant (a tribute to his partner Francis Menuge, who died in 1990).

A bio-doc about Micheline Presle changes into a thrilling investigation of the long hidden truth about European cinema. This mockumentary thriller uncovers Hollywood's unsuspected plot against the European motion picture industry. Numerous directors and stars appear in the film, making it a choice morsel for all film lovers.

An elderly gentleman and his dog find themselves out of a home with little means.

Choukri, alias Chouchou, a transvestite Maghrebi with clear eyes, comes illegally to Paris to find his nephew. Hired as an assistant by a psychotherapist, known for his good mood, he also work as a waiter in a transvestite cabaret of Clichy where he meets Stanislas.

A man has pre-wedding jitters on the eve before his marriage. His thoughts switch between sweet dreams and nightmares of a life with another woman.

A porn film director convinces his producer to make a romantic film, but the cast is grappling with tensions in their private lives.

In the summer, 27 year-old Sam drives towards the south of France in his Ford. He meets Matthieu and his sister Léa and takes them along in his apparently aimless journey. Matthieu has a crush on Sam and tries to seduce him. Léa is a beautiful, young, provocative girl who likes men so much that she got pregnant. She soon brings along Jérémie with them. Throughout the trip, they learn to know, fight and love each other. In spite of a blooming relationship with Matthieu, Sam isolates himself because of his secret: he is headed for Spain to find his long-lost mother.

Un conservateur terrorisé par les plantes vertes, une mère plastifiée pour être exposée, un ballet de Saintes Vierges, des gardiens épuisés par Rodin, un ministre perdu dans une exposition de sexes, une voiture disparue au parking Rembrandt, des provinciaux amoureux des Impressionnistes, touristes galopins galopant d'une salle à l'autre, passager clandestin dans l'art premier, Picasso, Gauguin, Warhol, ils sont tous là dans ce petit monde qui ressemble au grand, dans ce musée pas si imaginaire que ça, valsant la comédie humaine jusqu'au burlesque.

In WWII France, poor and illiterate Henri Fortin is introduced to Victor Hugo's classic novel Les Misérables and begins to see parallels between the book and his own life.

Aging beautician Angèle, already wounded by a long-ago romance, gets awkwardly dumped at a train station. Witnessing how she turns around a humiliating situation, younger sculptor Antoine becomes so smitten that he breaks up with his fiancée and sets out to win Angèle's heart. Meanwhile, Angèle attempts to quash the budding romance of her young co-worker, Marie, and a much older widowed client, despite their obvious rapport.

After seeing the initial passion and romance fade into a series of routine and boring relationships, Alexandre (Vincent Perez) concludes that romance ends when sex enters into a relationship. Determined to prevent this from happening with his latest love-interest—a sexy young woman named Fanfan (Sophie Marceau)—he decides that platonic love is the solution. Despite the wonderful, romantic, and inventive ways Alexandre finds for them to spend time together, Fanfan is left disappointed by his refusal to make love to her. Their exciting relationship becomes jeopardized by Alexandre's unwillingness to change his new approach to love.

No one knows, or is ever likely to know how many disabled or handicapped relatives have been hidden from the outside world in attics and basements over the years. In this wry comedy, Basile is an eleven-year old boy living in a rural French town (along with his mother) with his grandparents. He has the usual boyish adventures in town, punctuated with odd goings-on brought about by events which take place in his grandfather's crocodile farm. However, there is a deep rivalry between his grandmother and her wheelchair-bound half-sister, Cecile, who has kept hidden from the world (and her family), and has lived in the attic for decades. Basile eventually feels the wrongness of her situation and feels that he may be the reincarnation of Victor, Cecile's long-lost lover. Eventually things come to a head in a confrontation which provides the town gossips with material for years to come.

Maxime and Paulo are two young men in their very early twenties. Maxime is spending his summer holidays with his parents in a camping resort, which he hates, and Paulo is working in the nearest cafeteria. They hope to win a cruise to Bora-Bora by collecting capsules from pop-soda bottles. They are missing only one capsule, which is unfortunately found by Penelope, who works in the local supermarket. Unfortunately, because Penelope is not very attractive. The two boys make Penelope believe that Paulo is going to go on the cruise with her, but Maxime decides to ride along with them, in Penelope's old car, to Marseille, where the ship is leaving from. Actually the two boys plan to steal Penelope's capsule, get rid of her, and go on the cruise together. But, on their way to Marseille, they are going to meet a couple of very strange elderly people, Hermine and Gaspard.

Bernard, an executive for a big company, tries to get home in time for his wedding but is caught in the middle of a mass suicide. He saves a sect member who then follows him like a puppy, and is chased by the sect leaders, two over-the-top crooks with bloated egos and a craving for money.

Joey Wellman, an American cartoonist from Cleveland now largely forgotten at home, visits France with his partner Lena to attend an exhibition in Paris about the comic strip (bande dessinée) which features his work. He also hopes to be reconciled with his daughter Elsie who has been a student in Paris for two years, in flight from the American culture of which she sees her father as a typical example. Elsie is naively infatuated with French literature, and is trying to secure an introduction to the brilliant university professor Christian Gauthier, an expert on Flaubert but also an enthusiast for comic books. The meeting of father and daughter goes badly, but Elsie is persuaded to join Joey and Lena for the weekend at the country house of Gauthier's mother, Isabelle. During a comic-themed masquerade party, all of the characters are made to reconsider their present and past relationships.

In the German-occupied Paris, Helene is torn between the love for her boyfriend Jean, working for the resistance and the German administrator Bergmann, who will do anything to gain her affection.

A crime story set in Paris about a Bonnie-and-Clyde couple -- how they got together and how they are pursued for a murder they never committed.

Araminte is a wealthy young widow. Over a matter of land, she is in conflict with Count Dorimont, whom her mother would like her to marry. In need of a steward, she hires Dorante, a handsome young man without a fortune, whose secret ambition is to win the young woman's heart and hand. It's Dubois, Dorante's former valet, now Araminte's, who, by manipulating all the household staff, hatches a plot based on true, false and mixed confidences, designed to lure Araminte into Dorante's arms. Dorante eventually confesses to Araminte, who forgives him and marries him.

Nine short films about love.

A fairy godmother helps a princess disguise herself so she won't have to marry her father.

Outlaw sisters in the old West inherit a ranch and try to settle down and develop relationships with neighboring family of lots of brothers.

Marco Mazzetti, a driving instructor, lives with his wife Irène and their young son. After a series of nauseous dizzy spells he goes to the doctor and discovers that he is four-months pregnant. Marco then becomes internationally famous.

In this satire, a police detectiveis investigating the disappearance and kidnapping of the host of a television dance show. However, instead of finding his man, he is trapped into becoming a contestant on a children's quiz show. What's worse is that he becomes a very successful contestant.

Family mother and model wife, Agnes hits a vehicle while driving in Paris. She immediately falls in love with the driver of the damaged car.

Anne lives with her husband in Belgium where she works as a restorer of paintings. When she becomes pregnant, she finds herself remembering a picture she did some time ago and of which she has no memory, no recollection of what happened to it. It becomes her goal to discover and clarify the mystery behind this painting, at the same time she notices that a strange man is following all of her moves.

Oscar is trying to re-establish an affair with Sandra, a disturbed young woman. Having found her husband Fabrizio shot dead and her young son Ricky standing beside him with a gun, Sandra suffered a complete breakdown and now lives in isolation with her protective mother. The latter saved the young boy from recrimination by placing the gun in his father's hand, making it seem like he committed suicide. However, things are not what they seem...

The film consists of seven roughly 15 minute episodes, each showing what will happen if one or more of the Ten Commandments will be broken: Jérome Chambard is warned that he will lose his job if he continues to swear; Françoise Beaufort enamored of a stripper calls on her only to find her married to a janitor who doesn't know what kind of dancing his wife performs; Denis, a Jesuit novice, leaves the order to avenge his sister's suicide, which was provoked by Garigny, who seduced her into prostitution and drug addiction; Philip buys a necklace for Micheline though he is bored with her; a young man find out that his real mother is not Madeleine, but actress Clarisse Ardant; Didier Marin, cashier of a bank, was fired by his boss; the Devil appears as a serpent for Jérome Chambard and the bishop are eating.

Pauline Bonaparte, sister of the famous Napoleon, embarks on a series of amourous escapades, including an engagement to the Conventionnel Fréron; her relationship with the comté de Canouville; and her marriage to General Leclerc, whom she follows to Saint-Domingue.

Rich socialite Chantal marries photographer Eugene and everything seems blissful until her envious friend attempts to break them up. In desperation, she turns to her mother, but the advice she receives may do more harm than good.

Seven directors each dramatize one of the seven deadly sins in a short film. In "Anger," a domestic argument over a fly in the Sunday soup escalates into nuclear war. In "Sloth," a movie star would rather pay someone to tie his shoe than bend over to do it himself, and he can't be bothered to accept a starlet's sexual favors. In "Gluttony," a peasant family on its way to the funeral of a relative who died from indigestion stops regularly to eat and drink en route, arriving in time to eat some more. In "Greed," a high-class prostitute refunds the price of a cadet's lottery ticket. In "Pride," an unfaithful wife finds reason to reform. And so on through lust and envy.

An ornithologist mistaken for an explosives expert is sent alone into a small French town during WWI to investigate a garbled report from the resistance about a bomb which the departing Germans have set to blow up a weapons cache.

A few stories about marriage and its problems. Antoine is about to marry Gisèle. His friend Julien, an established bachelor, desperately tries to convince him not to do it, recounting his own painful experiences.

Suave antiques dealer Alfredo Martelli is picked up by the police with no justification. At the precinct, Martelli realizes what the investigation is all about-- that he is the main suspect in the killing of his wealthy ex-lover. Is he guilty, or is he just a sleaze?

In eighteenth-century France, a girl is forced against her will to take vows as a nun. Three mothers superior treat her in radically different ways, ranging from maternal concern, to sadistic persecution, to lesbian desire.

A group of Nobel laureates descends on Stockholm to accept their awards. Among them is American novelist Andrew Craig, a former literary luminary now writing pulp detective stories to earn a living. Craig, who is infamous for his drinking and womanizing, formulates a wild theory that physics prize winner Dr. Max Stratman has been replaced by an impostor, embroiling Craig and his chaperone in a Cold War kidnapping plot.

Lucky Baron Jérôme Napoléon Antoine wins a boat in a card game and takes off with his former lover in search of new adventures. Adverse circumstances land them in a small town, where the Baron's seafaring companion departs for more attractive scenery offered by a wealthy local. Meanwhile, there's a certain charming café owner that the Baron finds irresistible – at least for awhile.

A couple of hit men set out to kill an old friend.

After a planned robbery on an armoured car the investigating police officer encounters a female journalist who specialises in criminology, and who he suspects may have had a role in the heist.

An American woman in Italy falls in love with a man, unaware that he has an insane wife hidden in the attic.

This short film by Jacques Demy was based on his memories of growing up in Nantes, France. While it was initially made for the omnibus film THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS (as the segment on "Lust"), it has also been distributed and exhibited separately.

Professor Johansson has made a huge scientific breakthrough; a device that will create a huge magnetic pulse that knocks out all electricity over a continent-wide area. The military applications are already being thought of when Dr. Johansson is kidnapped by a group of profit-seeking mercenaries. Meanwhile, his daughter, Karin, finds herself having to consort with all manner of shady characters as she searches for her father.

American soldiers stranded in the Philippines after the Japanese invasion form guerrilla bands to fight back. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation in 2001.

Painter Jan Van Rooyer has been art teacher to Jacqueline Cousteau, an older Frenchwoman who becomes his lover. But when she turns up dead, Van Rooyer must explain their relationship to the police to clear his name.

The beautiful Beatrice Cenci, daughter of the noble Francesco, falls in love with Olimpio. But she has to face the jealousy of his violent and morbid father, and the hostility of his stepmother Lucrezia, who has a relationship with her other stepson, James. The stepmother and stepson-lover plan to kill Francesco. And when the latter dies accidentally, they decide to put the blame on Beatrice and Olimpio.

Marie, a young doctor, settles down on the Ouessant Island. She will be able to win the diffidence of the local population but she will have to fight for her independence after falling in love with an Italian engineer.

The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of the title, and the various composers and other historic personalities, whose careers intersected with the growth of the Ricordi house. It beautifully draws the parallel between the great music of the composers, the historic and social upheavals of their times, as well as the "smaller stories" of the successive generations of Ricordi.

Vienna, 1906. A passionate love story develops between Franz Lobheiner and the young Christine. Lobheiner is, however, currently seeing the married Baroness von Eggersdorf. Upon learning of his wife's infidelity, the Baron von Eggersdorf provokes a duel with Lobheiner. But the former is no longer a real threat to the Baron. Lobheiner is now passionately in love with Christine. How will this love quartet end?

Witty narration follows the history of Versailles Palace; founded by Louis XIII, enlarged by autocratic Louis XIV, whose personal affairs and amours, and those of his two successors, are pursued in more detail to the start of the Revolution, after which the story is brought rapidly up to date.

The film follows the life of Napoleon from his early life in Corsica to his death at Saint Helena. The film is notable for its use of location shooting for numerous scenes, especially at the French estates of Malmaison and Fontainebleau, the Palace of Versailles, and sites of Napoleonic battles including Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Catherine is scouted by magazine editor Judith and her co-worker/boyfriend Michel. Promoted under the stage name 'Chouchou', Catherine becomes a big asset but things become complicated when she and Michel start developing mutual romantic feelings. These are exacerbated when Judith gets the idea of doing a wedding-themed shoot, wherein Catherine plays the part of the blushing bride and Michel finds himself as the groom.

In Pompeii in the year 79, Lycias and Helen fall in love. Helen's guardian, the high priest of Isis, wants to separate them. To do so, he tries to make Lycias drink a love potion, but a young slave threatens to reveal everything. The high priest, unable to silence her, kills her and arranges to have Lycias accused...

Villa Borghese, Rome's biggest urban park, is the place where everyday laughs and dramas are consumed. The movie is made of six vignettes set there.

It all begins with the discreet romance between the Creole maid Lea Mariotte and her young boss, George Brissac, an amoral bourgeois who plans to inherit his uncle's fortune and marry a young woman from a good family. After an incident where she kills a man, she is saved from the gallows by Fabian, a ship's captain, who has personal reasons for antagonizing the Brissacs. He takes care of her and falls in love with her, but doesn't tell her. She, in turn, takes the opportunity to return to her lover Brissac's arms, forcing him to marry her after seeing him murder his uncle.

Bobosse is increasingly immersing himself into the world of theater and experiencing his role as an actor more intensively. He plays in a piece where a man is abandoned by his wife and processes this philosophically. When his wife actually abandons him, he becomes embarrassed and plans to kill her.

In France during World War I, Marthe waits for her husband, Jacques, while he fights on the front lines. Marthe then begins a tempestuous affair with 17-year-old François, with whom she had a dalliance before marrying Jacques. Jealous François struggles with the fact that Marthe is married, while she tries to prove her devotion to her young, hotheaded lover. Things become even more complex when Marthe becomes pregnant with Jacques' baby.

Early in the war, a group of women decide to help the soldiers in the war front. They enlist the help of the wealthy Madame Marion.

Denis, a poor student in philosophy, works as a night porter in the Paris market of Les Halles in order to pay for his studies. Constantly weary, he falls asleep and dreams of a beautiful girl in white, Irène, with whom he falls in love.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the destiny of Félicie Nanteuil, a young girl from the provinces who became a big star on the stage thanks to a comedian who committed suicide out of love for her.

In pre-World Ward I in Paris, a budding artist, Pierre LeBlanc, falls in love and marries Janine, a dressmaker's assistant. Pierre has a flair for designing clothes, and he and his bride live in a blissful paradise, until the war breaks out and he becomes a soldier. Janine dies in childbirth and, no longer desiring to live, Pierre volunteers for a dangerous patrol behind German lines. While recuperating in the hospital from a wound he received on the mission, Pierre spends his time drawing sketches of dresses. He becomes rich and famous after the war. Years later, after devoting himself to his daughter, Pierre seeks a marriage with a girl no older than his daughter. A conflict develops and to ensure his daughter's happiness, Pierre sacrifices his own plans.

Charles's uncle is the headmaster of a chic girls school .He is short of the readies and he has lots and lots of debts.