Josiane Balasko

Michelle is enjoying a peaceful retirement in a Burgundy village, close to her longtime friend Marie-Claude. When her Parisian daughter Valérie drops off her son Lucas to spend school vacation with his grandma, Michelle, stressed out by her daughter, serves her toxic mushrooms for lunch. Valérie quickly recovers, but forbids her mother from seeing her grandson anymore. Feeling lonely and guilty, Michelle falls into a depression... until Marie-Claude's son gets out of prison.

Paris, 1894. Who is Fanni, who claims to be voluntarily locked up in a women-only mental institution? Searching for her mother among the multitude of so-called 'madwomen', Fanni discovers a community of modern heroines who defy her expectations, along with the unexpected friendship of fellow patients. The sumptuous and renowned 'Party of Fools' of the asylum is in preparation. Politicians, artists, and socialites will flock to it. It’s her last hope of escaping the closing trap.

Fanny, 30 years old and pregnant, is exhausted from living with her father alongside Virgil, her partner who’s a master of procrastination. When she stumbles upon a rent-to-own listing for a charming Parisian apartment with vintage appeal, she begins to believe she’s found her chance to finally turn her life around. But the saleswoman, Masséna, is far from fitting the image of a fragile, dying property owner. Determined to seize what she sees as her chance at independence, Fanny launches into a ruthless war against the woman she perceives as a calculating con artist.

No synopsis available yet.

​Arrested by mistake and mistaken for France’s most wanted man, Serge Martin, a peaceful retiree, becomes the target of the media. Caught up in a never-ending whirlwind, he’ll do everything he can to prove his innocence and get his life back… if that’s even possible!

Suffering from empty nest syndrome, two lonely parents concoct a scheme to get their kids interested in them again: they pretend they've won the lottery.

This documentary looks back on a career of a woman who, very early on, refused to accept the roles assigned to her. In the 1980s, while others were trying to please, she wrote "Les hommes préfèrent les grosses" (Men Prefer Fat Women), a manifesto ahead of its time, funny, feminist, and blunt. Later, with "Gazon maudit" (Damned Grass), she tackled homosexuality with a freedom that is still shocking today.

The day Redouane is going to get his promotion and finally become a foreman, he learns that the mattress factory where he works is being relocated to India. Determined to keep his promotion, he agrees to leave while having the guarantee of being paid double and takes his partner Marguerite with him. Once there, he discovers that his boss has duped him, he will indeed be paid double but in rupees. Furious, he decides to take revenge by teaching the teams the best of French social rights: strikes, demonstrations and RTT with the sole aim of overthrowing his boss. Between culture clash and social struggle, Redouane leads an unexpected revolution that could well change the destiny of the factory... and his own.

While her apartment is being renovated, Jacqueline is thrilled to be forced into spending "a few days" with her eldest daughter Carole and her son-in-law, who are both in couples therapy. These "few days" turn into "a few months". Jacqueline quickly feels at home. She prepares dinners, monopolizes the television, reorganizes the kitchen... She is here, and no one knows for how long!

A 48-year-old homeless singer and composer receive a cryptic message that makes him believe he has been visited by the Virgin Mary.

Receiving a César is a defining moment in an actress’s or actor’s career. Eleven actresses and actors take part in a mirror exercise and, years later, revisit the footage of the ceremony where they were honored. They rediscover the emotion, the laughter, and sometimes the regrets of that unforgettable moment.

Alexandre, a man in his 40s living in Lyon with his wife and children, discovers that the priest who abused him decades ago continues to work with children. He joins forces with others victims of the priest, to bring justice and “lift the burden of silence” about what they endured.

February 1976. Somalian rebels hijack a school bus carrying 21 French children and their teacher in Djibouti City. When the terrorists drive it to a no-man’s-land on the border between Somalia and French territory, the French Government sends out a newly formed elite squad to rescue the hostages. Within a few hours, the highly trained team arrives to the crisis area, where the Somalian National Army has taken position behind the barbed wire on the border. The French unit is left with very few options to rescue the hostages. As the volatile situation unravels, the French men quickly come up with a daring plan: carry out a simultaneous 5 men sniper attack to get the children and the teacher out safely. A true story.

A man goes on an all-inclusive vacation to the Caribbean and finds out he must share his room with someone else.

At 40, Stephanie loses her job and is forced to move back in with her mother. She is welcomed with open arms to the joys of overheated apartment, Francis Cabrel playing on loop, Scrabble games and precious motherly advice on how to behave at the table and live her life.

Born to a poor farming family in Brittany, Bécassine finds work as a nanny with the Marquise de Grand-Air who has recently adopted a lovely baby named Loulotte. A strong bond develops between Becassine and Loulotte, and life is sweet, until the Grand-Airs are threatened with financial ruin… Can Bécassine save the day? Naïve, funny, dreamy, optimistic, loving, Bécassine is also inventive, courageous and always ready to handle any situation in her own unique way – a superheroine like no other. César-winner Bruno Podalydès returns with a family movie adapted from the beloved French comic book Bécassine.

When their daughter decides to get a divorce, Coline and Andre can’t come to terms with it as they are very fond of their son-in-law. The only way to keep seeing him is in secret. But for how long can they lead a double life?

Isabelle, Parisian artist, divorced mother, is looking for love, true love, at last.

An unusually cold winter forces the french government to push the best housed people to accommodate some poor fellow citizens. The decree called "Le Grand Partage" creates some trouble among the residents of a Paris upscale apartment block.

At last, Josephine has found her perfect non-smoker-cat-loving-amazing-cook-perfect-man-soulmate. They’ve been in love for two years and everything is peachy. Until she realizes she’s… pregnant. Time for Josephine to transform her life, mature into a responsible adult, not become like her mother, get a job, hold on to her man, refrain from falling out with her friends, and tell her sister, who's been crashing at her place, that she's got to move out. A bunch of overwhelming challenges that Josephine will have to face in her own, special way.

A son finds an escape from his turbulent marriage with his slightly dysfunctional and quirky parents who are hiding a young boy from the authorities.

She drove me into a corner, then forced me to go beyond my limits. She made me confront the absolute: love, sacrifice, tenderness, abandonment. She dislocated me, transformed me. Why didn't anyone warn me? Why doesn't anyone ever talk about this?" Un heureux événement, or an intimate view of motherhood, sincere and with no taboos.

It's Julie's birthday but she seems to be the only one who remembers... Until Marco, the man she secretly loves, calls her and tells her he's going to drop off her son because the babysitter had a setback. Julie is devastated, everyone considers her to be a maid. Alone with this particularly obnoxious little boy, Julie decides to tell him the story of Cinderella... well, almost.

In 2008, Sami Benboudaoud discovered the hell of Neuilly-sur-Seine. Ten years later, now that everything is for the best for Sami who brilliantly completes his studies of political science, nothing will go for his cousin Charles of Chazelle.

25-year-old Khalid Belkacem has failed at everything: college education, summer camp instructor's permit, driver's license, and even his BCG. He never expected to become the first "positive discrimination" member of the police force. But as his mother says: "That's France for you! A country where everyone has a chance."

Plant loving Hilda has created a museum where she preserves endangered and rare plants from all over the world. Meanwhile, Attilem, a new genetically modified cereal, is launched on the market. Growing with little water and fertilizer while generating high crop field, Attilem looks like an ideal solution to eradicate starvation and provide an alternative to diminishing oil reserves. But nothing is at it seems...

Chloe has been living a successful life thanks to one trick: Albert Einstein is in her mind. But one day, he decides to move and chooses another body: Zac, a depressive beekeeper.

A self-conscious and self-referential adventure into the (pretend) lives of legendary actors in Paris.

French philosopher Denis Diderot produces the first encyclopedia while indulging in 18th-century decadence.

Paloma is a serious and highly articulate but deeply bored 11-year-old who has decided to kill herself on her 12th birthday. Fascinated by art and philosophy, she questions and documents her life and immediate circle, drawing trenchant and often hilarious observations on the world around her. But as her appointment with death approaches, Paloma finally meets some kindred spirits in her building's grumpy janitor and an enigmatic, elegant neighbor, both of whom inspire Paloma to question her rather pessimistic outlook on life.

After the Club Med and skiing, what happened to the Bronzés 27 years later? Early response: the same, and worse.

In the 1980 French countryside, farmer Jojo and his ill-tempered wife Lulu hate each other, though their respective interests speak against divorce. The only thing that keeps the oppressed Jojo from murder is the threat of the guillotine...

January 1966. In a Paris apartment, police discovers the corpse of Georges Figon, the man who broke the scandal of the Ben Barka affair and undermined Gaullist power.

Samy moves from the underdeveloped crime-ridden French suburb to the riches of Neuilly.

A group of travelers, including a monk, stay in a lonely inn in the mountains. The host confesses the monk his habit of serving poisoned soup to the guests, to rob their possessions and to bury them in the backyard. The story unfolds as the monk tries to save the guest's lives without violating the holy secrecy of the confession.

A strange investigation doesn’t erase the regrets of a grieving woman cop. Every four years, the past catches up with her. Every four years this woman is very afraid. Her fear is such that she feels it could kill her because in her dreams reality begins.

No synopsis available yet.

Stressed and overworked, famous French movie star Michel Blanc is beginning to wear down, physically and mentally, from the pressure and demands of fame. Already in a fragile state of mind, strange events start to transpire all around him, and he gradually loses his grip. Taking the advice of a psychiatrist, Blanc retreats to the countryside with his friend Carole Bouquet, but Blanc still has not managed to escape all of his problems.

After learning of her husband's infidelities, a housewife invites an itinerant lesbian to move in with them. None of their lives will ever be the same again.

A young boy and his two grandmothers flee from headhunters and other villainous types in the Brazilian rain forest in this wacky family adventure. Benjamin, whose mom is dead and whose dad is off in the jungle searching for gold, is more cool-headed than his two grandmothers, both of whom hate one another. Upper class teacher bristles at the coarse behavior of working class Suzanne, who shoplifts and cheats at cards. Soon bad guys threaten them, and the chase begins.

Jean-Pierre Costa is a football manager upon whom fate appears not to be smiling. First, a friend, Annabelle, dumps a pet Labrador named Didier on him whilst she goes off to make a report in Los Angeles. Next, one of his star players is injured, leaving him one player short for a crucial match. As if things could not get any worse, Costa wakes up one morning to find that that Didier has been transformed into a man...

A car dealer, well-to-do and with a beautiful wife, finds himself attracted to his rather plain new temporary secretary. Despite her own commitments she feels the same and the two soon embark on an affair. Though it would seem it has happened before his wife finds this particular entanglement of her husband's very difficult to accept.

Two neurotics, working for a suicide hotline on the night of Christmas Eve, get caught up in a catastrophe when a pregnant woman, her abusive boyfriend, and a cross-dresser visit their office.

Helene, a pill-addicted anesthesiologist, is mourning the death of her boyfriend when, through a car accident she causes, she chances to meet the lethargic Gilles, a young man who lives for free at his mother's hotel. Gilles pursues Helene romantically, and she eventually softens up. Gilles, however, is also devoted to Bernard, a petty crook who revels in mugging gay men. All three struggle with relationships that seem to be going nowhere.

After he is dismissed from his umpteenth job, Momo is kicked out of the family home by his fed-up father. He immediately joins his buddy Manu, who is also penniless having just lost his job at a cafeteria. The two decide to ask shady nightclub owner Sammy for a job, and he promptly hires them to transport back two statuettes from Amsterdam. Momo and Manu soon find out that these art objects are stuffed with drugs, but still manage to carry out their mission. They receive one kilo of grass in exchange, which they sell immediately. But while the business is lucrative, they discover that it's not so easy to become a full-fledged drug dealer...

When the mother of a "tribe" of five children leaves for good, their inept father is not sure how to keep the family clothed and fed, and without the help of his neighbor Simone, he would be nowhere. She is attracted to him but eventually gives up on the relationship. Meanwhile, the father grabs his brood and they take off for Paris in search of the wife. But Simone accidentally ends up on the same train...

Jean-Jacques Lestrade is the owner of a renowned veterinary clinic in Paris who lives in a luxurious apartment. He is part of Parisian high society and lives a wealthy lifestyle surrounded by young women and money. He relies on his trusty accountant, Jérôme Bouvier, to manage his finances. All goes well until the day that Béatrice Flamand, a tax inspector, shows up at his clinic, at which point Lestrade is now in trouble.

It is 1943 in Paris. Like so many others, the Bourbelle family's home has been taken over by the Germans and they now live in their cellar. Little do they know that the son, Guy-Hubert Bourdelle, is far from being the cowardly hairdresser he pretends. He is in truth the Germans’ most feared opponent: le super-résistant!

Without fear and beyond reproach: the life of the brave knight de Bayard reviewed and corrected with humorous sauce.

After having lost his job for having saved a child accused of shop lifting, Frédéric Barbier decides to become a school teacher with some funny results.The great comedy actor Coluche is excellent as a simple school teacher.

An international intrigue with terrorists threatening to blow up the presidents of the most powerful countries.

Lydie, a physically unattractive young woman, is brutally dumped by her fiancé when she had just acquired the lease of an apartment to live with him.

Mike (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a stuntman who works with his girlfriend Jane (Raquel Welch). On their wedding day Mike and Jane are forced by producers to do a stunt for a film they are working on. Mike, annoyed doesn't look on the road and crashes the car causing them to end up in a hospital. After they come out Jane doesn't want to talk to Mike so he decides to get her a job in a film in which he is a stunt double for his double who is a star in action pictures but is in fact a wimp.

Herbie, the Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of its own, is racing in the Monte Carlo Rally. But thieves have hidden a cache of stolen diamonds in Herbie's gas tank, and are now trying to get them back.

A quiet and inconspicuous man rents an apartment in Paris where he finds himself drawn into a rabbit hole of dangerous paranoia.

Holidaymakers arriving in a Club Med camp on the Ivory Coast are determined to forget their everyday problems and emotional disappointments. Games, competitions, outings, bathing and sunburn accompany a continual succession of casual affairs.

In this sequel to Les Bronzes (1978) summer has passed, but that doesn't mean the fun has to end for Bernard, Nathalie, Gigi, Jerome, Popeye, Jean-Claude, and Christiane.

Industrious accountant David Martinaud claims to be visiting his parents every weekend, but it's merely a cover for the labor-intensive refurbishing of his country cottage. The reason for David's secrecy is that his childhood crush, Lise, lives nearby, and, although she's married, he still believes they'll get together. His devotion to the idea borders on mania, and, when Lise's husband is accidentally killed, he quickly spirals out of control.

In this family comedy, Papa has no end of trouble getting his young son to accept his new girlfriend.

Having fortuitously discovered a photograph in which Marthe embraces someone unknown, Étienne Dorsay becomes jealous and imagines various stratagems to identify the lover. In the meantime, he and his friends acquire a weekend house for a very low price.