René Allio

A few years after the revocation of theEdict of Nantes, the Camisards, Protestants from the Cévennes region, mostly peasants and silk workers, formed groups following Gédéon Laporte and fought Louis XIV's dragoons.

A compilation of 30 French filmmakers, Alain Resnais and Jean Luc Godard among them, who use film to make a plea on behalf of a political prisoner. Jean Luc Godard and Anne Marie Mieville's film concerns the plight of Thomas Wanggai, West Papuan activist who has since died in prison. The short films were commissioned by Amnesty International.

Based on documents compiled by leading French philosopher Michel Foucault, this unique and original film charts the gruesome events which took place in a Normandy village in 1835, when a young man, Pierre Rivière, murdered his mother, sister and brother before fleeing to the countryside. With a cast made up of real-life villagers from the area where the events took place, the detailed re-enactments and careful attention to the gestures of their ancestors serve to create an intense and sometimes disturbing atmosphere of hyper-realism. Details of the crime and of the trial that followed are told from varied perspectives, including the written confession of Pierre himself, and form a rich and complex narrative that interrogates the concepts of “truth” and “history”.

Pierre is a middle-aged factory worker with plenty of unresolved anger. After his father's death, his mother feels compelled to move in with him. Having just moved there with his beautiful girlfriend, he begins to feel the pressure. When the May Day revolt begins, he goes crazy.

In 1943, a young couple hides food intended to be sold on the black market in a haystack. Each of their trips in the countryside represents rare, exalting moments during which they can live in harmony with nature. But one afternoon, the situation brutally changes.

Max, who dreams of adventures, abandons his studies at 18 to become involved in the navy. He becomes the sailor 512.

Madame Bertini, a newly widowed 70-year-old miser, has lived a sheltered life in squalour. She determines to venture into the modern world and have as much fun as possible, and in doing so finds that she loves it. She blows her life savings, much to the disapproval of the young people around her.