When We Were Kings

It's 1974. Muhammad Ali is 32 and thought by many to be past his prime. George Foreman is ten years younger and the heavyweight champion of the world. Promoter Don King wants to make a name for himself and offers both fighters five million dollars apiece to fight one another, and when they accept, King has only to come up with the money. He finds a willing backer in Mobutu Sese Suko, the dictator of Zaire, and the "Rumble in the Jungle" is set, including a musical festival featuring some of America's top black performers, like James Brown and B.B. King.

Bach - Ein Weihnachtswunder

Leipzig, December 1734: Christmas brings the Bach family together. The first snow has fallen and the children Gottfried and Elisabeth are delighted about the arrival of their older brothers Friedemann and Emanuel. The Thomaskantor has retired to his music room. Anna Magdalena supports her husband, as there are only a few days left and his latest work, the six-part "Christmas Oratorio", must be finished on time. It is awaited with suspicion by the city council and the gentlemen of the consistory, who have long found Bach's waywardness a thorn in their side and fear that, after the premiere of the St. Matthew Passion a few years earlier, the St. Thomas Church will once again be filled with "operatic" music. With the oratorio, Johann Sebastian Bach hopes that he will finally become court composer in Dresden. And, as always, he demands that all members of the family join forces to help him. But differences of opinion are increasingly delaying the completion of Bach's most famous work.

Napoléon

A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.

Basquiat

The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.

Hitler, la folie d'un homme

Schindler

The true story of German-Czech businessman Oskar Schindler (1908-74) as told by some of the Jews — more than a thousand people — whose lives he saved from extermination during World War II.

Marcello Mastroianni, l'Italien idéal

A portrait of the mythical Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni (1924-96), a unique performer who was one of the kings of European cinema.

Hitler - Eine Karriere

A keen chronicle of the unlikely rise to power of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and a dissection of the Third Reich (1933-1945), but also an analysis of mass psychology and how the desperate crowd can be deceived and shepherded to the slaughterhouse.

Isabelle Eberhardt

The true story of explorer, journalist and writer Isabelle Eberhardt, originally from Switzerland. She moved to Annaba in Algeria in 1897 with her mother, who preferred to live in the Algerian neighborhoods rather than the European neighborhoods that she hated, and converted to Islam. Her lifestyle shocked the French colonialists: she dressed like a man, frequented cafes and smoke shops. Fascinated by the desert, she traveled the Sahara under the identity of Si Mahmoud, she published articles and books on the world she discovered in southern Algeria, strongly criticizing the colonial authorities. Arriving in El Oued, the soldiers prevent him from continuing his journey. She disobeys and overhears officers shooting Arab prisoners. Arrested, she was accused of espionage and was expelled from Algeria. She married Slimane, a Muslim non-commissioned officer in 1901. Having become French through this marriage, she could now reside in Algeria.

பெரியார்

Periyar joins the Indian struggle for independence after being disgusted by the injustices of the Hindu caste system. Later, he begins fighting for the rights of Tamilians.

Hitler et les apôtres du mal

This portrait that goes against the grain depicts the Führer as a lazy, isolated leader, cut off from reality, incapable of governing without his "apostles". They are Hitler's essential ministers, advisers, rivals, courtiers. They hate each other, and the Führer puts them in competition, often to get the worst out of them. The portraits of Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, Albert Speer but also Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, and Doctor Joseph Mengele trace the rivalries, hatreds and predations that punctuate the entire frightening epic of Nazism. This documentary is composed of a selection of archive images and testimonies from descendants and specialists of this period.

Keiko Kishi, une femme libre

Born in 1932, Keiko Kishi has been one of the first Japanese actresses known worldwide. Her decision to move to France and to marry director Yves Ciampi in 1957 – after he filmed her in Typhoon Over Nagasaki starring Jean Marais and Danielle Darrieux – caused a huge scandal in Japan. Despite this transgression, Keiko Kishi continued acting in her home country with Kon Ichikawa, Yasujiro Ozu, Masaki Kobayashi… building unique bridges between Japanese and European cultures. Free and rebellious, she emancipated herself from the many obstacles she encountered in the film industry, and created her own production company in her early twenties. Let’s look back at the story of a pioneer, an inspiration for many generations.

Mélancolie ouvrière

Long live the strike! Lucie Baud, one of the pioneers of the women's movement, went with creativity, fighting spirit and the power of singing against the weapons of male-dominated capitalist society in nineteenth-century France. The film, based on true events, describes the ambitious fight of a silk moth. She stood up for the rights of the female working class to end maltreatment and oppression once and for all. For the revolution in women's rights, she even put her family back and fought to the end for their beliefs.

Simone, le voyage du siècle

Simone Veil's life story through the pivotal events of Twentieth Century. Her childhood, her political battles, her tragedies. An intimate and epic portrait of an extraordinary woman who eminently challenged and transformed her era defending a humanist message still keenly relevant today.

The Ball Method

Alice Ball, a 23 year-old African American Chemist living in 1915 Hawaii fights against racial and gender barriers to find an effective treatment for leprosy before Kalani, a 10-year-old patient is exiled into the leper colony of Molokai.

La nouvelle femme

Set in 1900, Lili d’Alengy, a Parisian cocotte at the height of her fame, flees Paris to hide her “idiot” daughter. There she meets Maria Montessori, who is pioneering a teaching method that may help the child.

Mencari Ramlee

To pay his debts, a small-time actor is forced to impersonate screen icon P. Ramlee.

Françoise Dolto, le désir de vivre

After the Second World War, Claude, son of communist resistance fighters, whose mother died in Auschwitz, and Ben, child of a prostitute and a Jew, face the demons that haunt them with the help of Françoise Dolto.

Eva Braun, dans l'intimité d'Hitler

This film captures the affair, full of love, lust, and despair, between Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, from 1932 until their double suicide in 1945.

Mad to Be Normal

The story of Scottish psychiatrist RD Laing and his unique community at Kingsley Hall, East London in the 1960s.