Bruno Todeschini

Paris, Kingdom of France, August 18, 1572. To avoid the outbreak of a religious war, the Catholic princess Marguerite de Valois, sister of the feeble King Charles IX, marries the Huguenot King Henry III of Navarre.

Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, April 2011. Jacques and Safi arrive from Abidjan, from where they've been repatriated in an emergency. He's as tough as nails, after too much time in the African sun and enjoying an expatriate lifestyle while running a hotel. Safi, his fourteen-year-old daughter, is used to living with her mother and doesn't know what to think about her loud-mouthed and useless father who has suddenly taken her away with him. Moved to a hostel in Nice, they learn to get to know each other, to be able to look each in the eye, perhaps to love each other. But there's also Gloria, Safi's mother, left behind in the upheaval of Abidjan, and impossible to contact...

A man. A woman. A single night in Paris. Such is the basic framework of this French romance that begins when middle-aged middle-class housewife Clara, happily drives to the airport to meet her husband who was supposed to come in on the evening flight and is devastated to learn that he has remained at his hotel and is having an affair. Clara sees a younger man eating a sandwich and asks him to have a drink. Later, she and he, an amiable baggage handler, spend the evening talking and exploring the nightlife on the outskirts of Paris. There they meet many people from other countries who come to Paris and work as laborers.

A French woman mourning over the death of her husband three years prior is courted by a Swedish co-worker.

Newly transferred to the bustling port city of Marseille to assist with a crackdown on organized crime, energetic young magistrate Pierre Michel is given a rapid-fire tutorial on the ins and outs of an out-of-control drug trade. Pierre's wildly ambitious mission is to take on the French Connection, a highly organized operation that controls the city's underground heroin economy and is overseen by the notorious —and reputedly untouchable— Gaetan Zampa. Fearless, determined and willing to go the distance, Pierre plunges into an underworld world of insane danger and ruthless criminals.

From his offices in Switzerland, Russian Igor Lipovsky is engaged in a vast and profitable gunrunning operation with Africa. The French government wants to hinder the activities of the arms dealer and sends a team to sink one of his ships heading for Angola with a load of illegal weaponry. Lisa, Brisseau, Loïc, Tony and Raymond are professionals: they carefully set up their cover, plan all their moves meticulously, and carry out orders without asking questions. Perhaps they should. The code-name of the mission is "Janus"; and just like with the ancient deity, there are two opposite faces for every aspect of the operation: the objective of the French government, the role of each team member, the presumed friend and the assumed foe...

A series of events unfold like a chain reaction, all stemming from a minor event that brings the film's five characters together. Set in Paris, France, Anne is an actress whose boyfriend Georges photographs the war in Kosovo. Georges' brother, Jean, is looking for the entry code to Georges' apartment. These characters' lives interconnect with a Romanian immigrant and a deaf teacher.