Claude d'Anna

Claude D'Anna's film of Verdi's Macbeth is a gloomy affair, stressing the descent into madness of the principal villains. It's acted by the singers of the Decca recording of the opera (with two substitutions of actors standing in for singers) and the lip-synching is generally unobtrusive. The musical performance is superb, conducted by Riccardo Chailly with admirable fire, and sung by some of the leading lights of the opera stages of the 1980s. Shirley Verrett virtually owned the role of Lady Macbeth at the time, and she delivers a terrific performance, the voice equal to the role's wide register leaps and it's suffused with emotion, whether urging her husband on to murder or maddened by guilt in the Sleepwalking Scene. Leo Nucci's resonant Macbeth may lack the ultimate in vocal color and steadiness (his last notes of the great aria Pietà, rispetto, amore are wobbly) but he compensates with intensity in both singing and acting.

Anne lives with her husband in Belgium where she works as a restorer of paintings. When she becomes pregnant, she finds herself remembering a picture she did some time ago and of which she has no memory, no recollection of what happened to it. It becomes her goal to discover and clarify the mystery behind this painting, at the same time she notices that a strange man is following all of her moves.

An aristocratic Sicilian family living in the 1950s. Count Villafratti has sex one night with his nymphomaniac daughter because he thinks she is his wife.

Deadly virus transmitted by human cough spreads quickly with the help of migratory birds. Scientists race against time in search of a cure.

In 2011 Tunisia, as the Arab Spring awakens, unemployed graduate Aziz, nicknamed Zizou, travels from his Saharan village to the big city of Tunis in search of a job. From television aerial installation to political intrigue, this fresh-faced young Candide will learn the ways of the world, fall in love with the ravishing Aicha, and become famous.

The difficult reunion between a tough young mother and her neglected daughter provide impetus this gritty, but upbeat French drama. Daisy, a typical young woman of the X-generation, seems to have no ambition in her life; she lives for the moment and the moment is often self-destructive. Abused as a child, she affects toughness and bravado to disguise her inner fears. Mona, Daisy's seven-year old daughter, is the result of the sexual abuse Daisy suffered while she was a child. Mona was raised by her father, but after he went to prison and his girlfriend rejected her, Mona must return to her mother. The reunion is not joyful and the two must lower plenty of mutual barriers if they are to bond. When Mona's lover Sami is arrested for a shooting, Daisy and Mona go on the lam. To survive they become con-artists and petty thieves. Just as things start to improve, finds out that her new boss has been having her deliver kiddie-porn.

Most of the action takes place in two dressing rooms of a Parisian theater during the performance of a successful play. Marion, 40, beautiful and famous, is the star. Gabriel, her 55-year-old husband, is less fortunate: he's the one who discovered Marion, but never managed to impose himself. That evening, throughout the performance, the couple will indulge in a savage settling of scores, while the anecdotes of the evening and the other actors provide a comical counterpoint to the monstrous confrontation.

John the Baptist, the prophet of Israel, is imprisoned by Herod, governor of Judea for protesting Herod's marriage to his brother's wife. Jealousies rage and Herod's step-daughter and niece Salome seduces Herod by means of a torrid dance to give her the head of the prophet - but then tries to save the life of the man she has thus condemned. Updated to a WWII setting