Robert Deslandes

In June 1940, during the Dunkirk evacuation of Allied troops to England, French sergeant Julien Maillat and his men debate whether to evacuate to Britain or stay and fight the German troops that are closing-in from all directions.

A recently released safecracker returns to stealing in order to support his family. After several successful thefts, he decides to induct his teenage son into the 'family business'.

After serving his sentence, a robber returns to his small, quiet hometown to retrieve the loot. But a ruthless Police inspector and his equally nasty young subordinate are after the criminal.

After five years in the army, Valentin Brû marry a haberdasher. They move to Paris, where Valentin sells frames, while his wife becomes fortune teller. One day, Valentin replaces her, and predict a terrible event which will happen.

Lovers Beatrice Dalle and Wadeck Stanczak can't quite cope with the situation when Dalle becomes pregnant. Stanczak fears that his future as an architect will be scuttled by any parental responsibilities. For her part, Dalle wants to keep the baby, but she also wants to keep Stanczak. Attempting to smooth the waters is the couple's mutual friend Francis Frappat. Chimere was the second feature-film project for director Claire Devers, who rose to prominence on the strength of her award-winning maiden effort Black and White.

Antoine has raised Sébastien, the son of a friend who was killed in a plane crash. Sébastien is doing his military service and Antoine would like him to marry Nathalie, the girl he grew up with. But Nathalie is in love with an American, and the day Sébastien has a leave, she leaves with her lover.

Jérôme and Sophie are "foreigners". They evolve in a world whose rules seem to them as many constraints and adopt unusual behaviors which can disorientate their interlocutors. They say they are brother and sister and many people prefer to believe them and be satisfied with this version for fear of supporting a situation that is too scabrous. Only Olivia accepts to assume the situation. Her taste for derision and her humor allow her to overcome the provocations of the couple and to take an ascendancy on them.

In the 50's, the count Grandvalet lose his wife and his daughter in his castle's fire. A few days later, he's found in his barn. Twenty six years later, the arrival of a young woman, Marion Grandvaler, in the village revive doubts and suspicions.

Emile Magis, a modest employee, more or less ostracized by the others, would like only one thing, to be happy. Little by little he realizes that life in society is a matter of convention, lies and deception. When he has understood that cynicism rules the world, he decides to play by its untold rules and to take his revenge.

Rival brother and sister Gaëtan and Chantal, the last heirs of the late billionaire financier Omar Porassis, use every trick in the book to try and claim his fabulous inheritance when two of Omar's natural sons, Roger and Marc, are found. The brother and sister try to manipulate Marc and Roger into stealing their inheritance. After discovering the deception, the two half-brothers join forces to escape the many traps set by Gaëtan and Chantal, who try to eliminate them by any means necessary.

An off-beat, uneven tale about a man intent on suicide and the three people who try to talk him out of it, Pantalaskas stars American Carl Studer in the title role of the morose, would-be suicide. Set in Paris and taking place over an entire night, the story has a complication in that the trio who want to prevent the suicide do not speak the man's language -- he is Lithuanian and speaks no French. So the protagonists comb the underbelly of a nighttime Paris, looking high and low but mostly low for anyone who speaks Lithuanian. Depending mainly on dialogue for its impact, the verbose drama reveals how the protagonists undergo a transformation as the night wears on.

The series Mazarin (1978) recounts the rise of Jules Mazarin, first an Italian diplomat and later France’s chief minister after Richelieu. The story shows how he earns the trust of Anne of Austria and becomes the political mentor of the young Louis XIV. Over the course of the episodes, Mazarin faces court intrigues, the hostility of powerful nobles, and the turmoil of the Fronde, which threatens royal authority and forces him into several periods of exile. Despite pamphlets and conspiracies, he manages to restore order and prepare the emergence of the future Sun King. The series thus portrays a skilled statesman, often contested but essential in shaping absolute monarchy.