Monique Dartonne

A mother's last wishes send twins Jeanne and Simon on a journey to Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's acclaimed play, Incendies tells the powerful and moving tale of two young adults' voyage to the core of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love.

The key to the communal laundry room in the block of flats on the Rue de Genève 85 in Lausanne serves a much greater function than merely unlocking the door. This encounter between a symbol of typical Swiss mentality with a penchant for order and the tenants who have been housed here by the city’s social services department is not something to be taken for granted. Although the laundry room is normally located in the cellar, the tenants in this building share a tiny laundry room off the entrance hall because the cellar is reserved for prostitution. To maintain order and cleanliness, the landlord hires Claudina, a new “laundry woman”.

Five people in one city, different ways of loving and living, different views on how to experience or suppress the past.

A man is looking for a singer he had heard on cassette. He finds much more.

Djam, a young Greek woman, is sent to Istanbul by her uncle Kakourgos, a former sailor with a passion for Rebetiko, to find a rare part that will repair their boat. In Istanbul, she encounters Avril, a nineteen-year-old French girl, alone and without any money, who came to Turkey as a voluntary worker with refugees. Djam, generous, cheeky, unpredictable, and free-spirited, takes Avril under her wing on the way to Mytilene. A journey filled with encounters, music, sharing, and hope.

In a suburb of Strasbourg, Alsace, France, ten year old boy, Max, spends his summer vacation with his grandmother. He hears Manouche gypsy Romani music being played in a local bar, and loves it. He goes to visit the gypsies in search of a guitar, where he meets a young Romani tomboy, 'Swing'. She introduces Max to her gypsy community who live in caravans and down-at-heel public housing. Over several days, Max is taken into the community to witness Romani lifestyle, traditions, knowledge of plants, and particularly their Manouche music. Max is particularly fascinated by Miraldo, the Romani guitarist he first heard in the bar, and asks to take guitar lessons with him (Miraldo is played by one of the greatest guitarists of gypsy jazz, Tchavolo Schmitt).

The film investigates explicit representations of female sexuality by women, exploring the pragmatic and philosophical questions they pose, with emphasis on the ways in which the creation of women-friendly pornography confronts and alters the expectations of male consumers. Ultimately, Nitoslawska is concerned with how we comprehend desire, gender and identity, how we understand and represent its history, and the resulting affect on culture and human relations.

A Gypsy family travels the French roads during the Second World War, followed by Little Claude, a young boy seeking a new family after his parents "left and never returned". Upon reaching a town where they traditionally stop for a few months and work in vineyards, they learn that a new law forbids them from being nomadic. Theodore, the town's mayor, and Miss Lundi, the schoolteacher, protect and help the Gypsies. Despite this, They are arrested and placed in an internment camp. Theodore manages to rescue them and gives them a piece of property where they must settle. But the Gypsies' deeply ingrained thirst for freedom makes this sedentary lifestyle difficult to bear. After Theodore and Miss Lundi are arrested for resistance, the Gypsies decide they must get back on the move in order to remain free.

On a Mediterranean shore, a Syrian father's decision to give his daughter a better life puts her in danger of losing it.

In a fast-paced action film with an international backdrop, an unsuspecting Edith (Mireille Perrier) goes to Frankfurt to work for a German friend who is investigating some illegalities in the transportation industry. After Edith arrives, her friend leaves for Berlin, so Edith goes to stay at the house her friend shares with a second-generation German-Turkish woman. Meanwhile, Gordon (Bruce Thurman) is out photographing some journalists armed with video cameras who are spying on a wealthy honcho in the trucking business. He accidentally follows Edith and photographs her, then ends up saving her from some attackers. The dramatic action intensifies as questions arise about what certain trucks are carrying into Germany, what Edith's friend has to do with exposing the cargo on those trucks, and whether or not Edith will remain an unscathed, innocent by-stander.

One day Zano suggest a crazy idea to his companion Naïma: travel across France and Spain down to Algeria, where they might ultimately come to know the land their parents once had to flee.

Zingarina arrives in Transylavania, accompanied by her close friend Marie and her guide and interpreter Luminitsa. She is not there only to visit this region of Romania but to trace her lover Milan, a musician who has made her pregnant and who left her without a word of explanation. When she finds him back, he brutally rejects her and Zingarina is terribly upset. She leaves her two companions and having become a wreck she hardly survives by following a wandering little girl. Her destiny changes for the best when she meets Tchangalo, a traveling trader...

Rayan, a young French boxer of Algerian origin, loses his mother. As tradition dictates, he must accompany his remains to his native country. There, he meets his family for the first time, managed in a patriarchal manner by his uncle. Through the discussions, Rayan understands that there is a serious family conflict. For him, a new fight begins.

It is time for thirty-something Ludovic Chambercy to succeed his father Jacques at the head of the family business: the Chambercy Galleries. But faced with his new duties, Ludovic begins to sweat, has panic attacks and even dizzy spells. He is diagnosed with hypegiaphobia or extreme fear of responsibility. This man with everything for a happy life seems to be shying away from the expectations of his family. Reluctantly, without a word to his father and girlfriend, Ludovic starts group behavior therapy. While his lies spark off an incredible series of tragicomic events, Ludovic strikes up a friendship with the other phobics in his group: Léon, trader in bric-a-brac, who can no longer stand untidiness; Clémence, a student who cannot bear even one second of her own company and Margaux, who can no longer touch or be touched. And if Ludovic is to find a cure at the end of the road, there will be a few surprises in store for him along the way...

A Syrian exile living in Australia returns when his brother is taken into custody by the Assad regime in 2011.

South of France. In the sultry August heat, Geronimo, a young social educator, tries to ease tensions between the youngsters of the St Pierre neighborhood. The mood changes when Nil Terzi, a teenage girl of Turkish origin, flees an arranged marriage, running to the arms of her gypsy lover, Lucky Molina. Their escape sparks hostilities between the two clans. When the jousting and the musical battles begin, Geronimo struggles to quell the ensuing unrest around her.

Johnny, aged 20, can't live without Fanfan, his twin sister. There is a very particular intimacy between them. They walk together everywhere, share the same room, the same tastes, the same bike, the same camping tent. But also a conflict principle sets in. Oppressed by his overbearing need, she decides to head for the south of Portugal, the country of their parents. His dreams are shattered; he feels deeply betrayed by his sister. Caught between his father who is preparing to retire to Portugal and his mother who refuses to leave France, he tries to work out his own identity. His passion for rock music gets him involved with his sister's former lover. By following this charismatic leader preaching dubious ideology, he risks losing his "gentle half" forever. Meanwhile in Portugal, she becomes disillusioned. Will they manage to grow up without each other?

Perhaps you have to love dogs in order to sell tins of slimy mystery meat to their owners. At any rate Martin, who is indifferent to pets in general, isn't doing all too well in his marketing job at Floppy Dog Foods. But right now this is the least of his problems: he has made a British au-pair pregnant in a one night stand; and while he is trying to figure out how to deal with this, his ex-wife (who divorced him over his not wanting children) and his mother (a militant anti-overpopulation, pro-birth control, pro-abortion activist) have a few comments to offer on the situation. Before his own child is born, Martin clearly has some growing up of his own to do.

Three French pals take to the road in a stolen car and discover a talking, wounded stork — who claims to have deserted the Algerian army — and help it to escape to the home of a relative in Germany.

Three French sisters have their lives interrupted and their relationship called into question when their father returns to visit 15 years after having abandoned them and their now-deceased mother. Each responds differently to his return according to how her character evolved from her relation with him and his unexpected departure. They eventually realize, though, that the somewhat elderly father is quickly losing his memory and his ability to function, and the youngest daughter's decision to accept him again while she can ends up permanently changing her family ties with her sisters.

Tom Medina is sent by a juvenile judge to the Camargue, to live with Ulysses, a kind-hearted man in tune with nature. Inhabited by visions, fascinated by bulls and horses, Tom learns the trade of a herdsman at Ulysses’ side. He no longer steals and now thirsts for knowledge and aspires to become someone else. Revolted by the hostility which does not change towards him, he fights against his destiny and crosses the road of Suzanne…

The young historian Elisabeth is traveling to Lyon on her own in order to explore the city tracing the life of Flora Tristan. Tristan, whose diary Elisabeth is carrying, was a 19th century socialist and feminist who influenced many contemporary activists and intellectuals yet fell into oblivion herself. Elisabeth tries to put together the clues she can find in Lyon wanting to reconstruct Tristan's life in the most sensual way.

The struggles of a 28-year-old mother in Lyon who tries to combine her love life and raising her 12-year-old rebel son.