Maruschka Detmers

We thought we'd seen, read, and heard everything there was to see about the Cannes Film Festival, from the glitz and gossip to the scandals and censorship. And yet, Emmanuel Barnault's "Morceaux de Cannes" (Pieces of Cannes), by this leading expert on Italian and French cinema, convinces us otherwise. The third largest event in the world (after the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup) reveals its secrets only sparingly, as this film attests. The result of passionate research in the INA archives, these 52 minutes, without interviews or voice-over narration, string together rare and sometimes previously unseen footage. Taken together, they tell a surprising, original, and heartwarming story of the Festival. On the beach, on a street corner, in a restaurant, or in the privacy of a hotel room, these forgotten archives summon the greatest filmmakers, actors, and actresses of the last seventy years, from Jean Cocteau to David Lynch, for an anthology of the Festival's history.

Marie Hersant, a police captain, arrives on Ouessant, the island where she grew up, to investigate the disturbing disappearance of her childhood friend Sandrine. This is an opportunity for Marie, who is five months pregnant, to reconnect with her mother, Gaëlle. But soon Sandrine's body is washed up by the sea as a storm breaks out, cutting off all connection with the mainland...

A group of friends reunite after 30 years to climb the Mont Ventoux again. Memories to a happy youth but also new discoveries from the past. One person is not present at the reunion. Why is that? What happened?

After a painful separation from her husband, Barbara, an attractive woman in her mid-forties, wants to change her mind and really relax. With her best friend Silke, she travels to a chic ski resort to enjoy her new-found freedom to the full. As soon as she arrives at the posh ski resort, Silke thinks she recognizes Hermann, the love of her life, in a hotel guest who seems to have died two years ago in unexplained circumstances. Has she been taken in by a marriage fraud? Silke persuades her friend Barbara to play the wealthy decoy.

A few days before the baccalaureate, a high school student decides to settle accounts with the most cowardly teacher in the school.

Robert works as a gamedev in Hamburg and, together with his team, which includes his best friend and flatmate Ole and his girlfriend Lorna, is on the verge of completing an innovative first-person shooter. Before the Chinese businessmen arrive, Robert goes to the nearby sausage stand with Ole and messes up his gray suit with ketchup. On the spur of the moment, he goes to a nearby dry cleaner and asks the ladies working there for quick help. Normally he would have to wait a day, but Monika promises to clean the suit within two hours. Robert's reaction seems a little strange, but no one can yet suspect that he has just fallen head over heels in love with the attractive woman in her mid-forties.

A poor but ambitious young man arrives in Paris and settles down in the boarding house run by Madame Vauquer. He soon gets to know the guests: Victorine Taillefer, a young lady her rich father refuses to recognize; Horace Bianchon, a medical student; Monsieur Vautrin, a mysterious and disconcerting man; Goriot, a rich merchant who spent all his fortune for his daughters, Delphine and Anastasie, to make a rich marriage. Eugène becomes friends with Goriot but while the former, thanks to his cousin Madame de Beauséant, is introduced in high society, Goriot, both exploited and scoffed at by his daughters, continues his descent into hell.

No synopsis available yet.

The Dutch exotic dancer Mata Hari is accused of spying for Germany during the First World War.

Jean and Sylvia left France with a stolen diamond to start a new life in South America. They land in Lima to live their passion. But the diamond is not easy to sell. They meet a French couple and hope to sell them the stolen diamond.

No synopsis available yet.

Drama set in the Second World War, focused on Jean Moulin, hero, martyr and symbol of the French resistance and the patriotism during the dark years of Nazi occupation.

Caroline, a teen, decides to come back to live with her mother where she meets Ben, her mother's very young lover. As Caroline begins to fantasize about Ben, she realizes that he's in love with her mother. Now, daughter and mom are at war.

The Mambo Kings tells the story of César and Nestor Castillo, brothers and aspiring musicians who flee from Cuba to America in search of the American Dream.

A CIA agent gets caught up in political intrigue after he gets brought in to solve the murder of a Cuban ambassador.

Successful Julien sees his family off on holiday and at once becomes drawn into a risky relationship with Angela, whom he spies outside the cafe opposite his office. When he later finds she is to become his son's new nanny he rightly starts to worry there is more to the relationship than he bargained for.

Two Polish brothers arrive in Paris with dreams of becoming rich and famous, and sure enough, they are soon participating in some forgotten film festival as a producer and a director -- but will this get them anywhere?

Sometimes your fate lies in the hands of those you meet. Filled with promising ambitions, shattered dreams, love and revenge and in the end hope, the story reveals how tangibly interconnected our induividual fates really are. Cabby Robby drives in and around St.Pauli, Hamburg, from sunset to sunrise. He is surrounded by stories of the night. Drowning in human incidents.

Despite his lifelong efforts, Jean is one of those unfortunate men who can never understand women. This arty, metaphorical French film presents three examples of Jean's difficulties over the course of his long life. Each of the three episodes takes place beside the same river. He is first seen as a small boy playing on the river banks with the teenage girl he secretly loves. She mischievously promises to tell him her darkest secret if only he will perform a certain task for her. The story then takes a more surreal turn as a now-grown Jean, once again beside the river, toys with a beautiful woman at a picnic. She wants a commitment from him, but wily Jean is unwilling to satisfy her. In the final segment, Jean has become an old man and is once again deeply in love.

All of Europe was affected by the Great Depression of the 1930s, but some parts were hurt less badly than others. France, for instance, was relatively prosperous. In this grim drama, a sturdy Polish boxer and his family have settled into a mining town in northern France because that's where the work is. Like European "guest workers" in the 1990s, the Polish immigrants then were frequently treated badly by the locals. In this drama, the romantic aspirations of the boxer's son are thwarted by the concerted efforts of the local men and his own family's preference that he marry another Polish girl. After his romance fails, the son becomes a union activist and sacrifices a great deal to try to gain higher wages for the miners, but the contract he works out is reneged on by the duplicitous owners.

Vienna before the First World War: Clarissa Schuhmeister grows up in the monastery. Strict discipline determines her life until she meets the Frenchman Léonard and falls in love with him. Just when she expects a child from him, the First World War tears the happy couple apart. Out of pragmatism, Clarissa marries Gottfried, a deserter, with whom she makes a painful yet realistic agreement so that he will not be sent back to war. But she never feels love for him because she can not forget Léonard.

Lieutenant Joe Armen is a devoted cop who loves his job. Tom Bullik is his Young partner. While on the run from hired killers who want to stop them from testifying against a mafia boss, Joe and Tom witness the kidnapping of Marion.

No synopsis available yet.

Terrorist Paul Mansart, imprisoned in a maximum security prison, overcomes initial reluctance and agrees to experiment in “virtual reality” in order to restore the identity of the mysterious criminal who prepared the assassination attempt that cost Paul his arrest and, possibly, a number of recent terrorist attacks in Europe.

A woman involved with a terrorist group becomes dangerously close to the police officer guarding the bank they plan to rob.

An Italian high school student becomes infatuated with a woman he sees outside his class window. Her fiancée is in jail for being involved in a radical movement, and she spends much time in court providing moral support. At first she resists the student's advances, but eventually begins an affair with him. Their situation is condemned by her family and his father, who is the woman's psychologist.

Hanna's War is the true story of Hanna Senesh, a Hungarian-Jewish WW2 resistance fighter, who would become Israel's "Joan of Arc". As a young person, she fled Nazi-occupied Hungary for Palestine, where she was recruited and trained by the British to serve as a commando. After completing her training in Britain, she parachutes into Yugoslavia with a commando team to establish escape routes across the Hungarian-Yugoslavian border for downed British pilots. Her attempts to save Hungarian Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary, however, leads to her capture, torture and demise at the hands of the Gestapo and the Nazi-controlled Hungarian police.

The manager of a contemporary music composer falls in love with the real estate agent with whom he is looking for a house in Paris. But both have been used to living an independent life: they want to marry but at the same time, are afraid of marriage

Shortly after returning home one evening with her husband, Alma is visited by her one-time lesbian lover Carole. In the ensuing emotional torrent, Alma allows herself to be abducted by Carole and taken to a hotel, pursued by a young girl - an unnamed friend of Carole - and an eccentric bystander posing as a private detective. Before Alma and Carole can resolve their situation, Alma's husband Andrew appears on the scene and, in a mad frenzy, attempts to reclaim his wife…

The humanitarian aid expedition "Angeles Azules" (Blue Angels), comprising twelve Europeans and six trucks loaded with provisions to alleviate hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa, advances across the continent. As a result of the difficulties the team encounters, disorganization gradually takes over the convoy. Each of the members of the group, little by little, yield to their petty, selfish impulses: violence, power, nostalgia - The breakdown of one of the trucks forces Michele and Nadia to wait at an oasis for the arrival of spare parts. But a starving local tribe settles threateningly near them. The chief of the tribe makes a speech they don't understand, which is followed by a macabre purification ceremony.

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

Detective Frank Zodiac is a cop traumatized by the death of his wife in a car accident that also left his daughter in a coma. This tragedy prevented him from being present to apprehend the dangerous gangster Gus Sabor, who was then able to escape from law enforcement. Three years later, Frank and Gus' paths cross again. Frank then sets out to pursue the criminal through Paris.

Adrien does not see eye to eye with his patrician father about much. It is 1912, and the old man still believes in the old rules which strait-jacket "men of class." He believes that the elite have the right to conquer where they can, that they should refrain from publicizing their improprieties, and he is rabidly pro-military. Adrian, kicked out of his military school for his own improprieties (and hiding that from his father), is naturally drawn to Vicky a beautiful divorced woman and friend of the family who is staying at their mansion. The family tutor, a man of ordinary background (with some ideas which seem radical in this household) is similarly smitten. On the basis of their shared attraction, the two men form a friendship. Meanwhile, the object of their affection finds it diverting to toy with them.