Odile Poisson

Two adventurers and best friends, Roland and Manu, are the victims of a practical joke that costs Manu his pilot's license. With seeming contrition, the jokesters tell Roland and Manu about a crashed plane lying on the ocean floor off the coast of Congo stuffed with riches. The adventurers set off to find the loot.

The story centers around a graduating class of "less-gifted" students in a private Versailles high school. Only a miracle has brought the students this far along, and after a practical joke misfires and the whole school is dynamited, the students are in deep trouble. They have to present themselves in court for their punishment and it could not be worse: If they don't pass their high-school graduation exams, they go to prison!

Jean-Marie Fayard is a young examining magistrate in a large provincial french city. He belongs to that generation of judges who are endeavoring to re-adapt the notion of justice to our changing times. His methods are not agreeable to every one. Criticism and pressure are brought to bear upon him but he is aware of his value, professionally, and refuses to make any concessions. He follows an unwavering course. He uses dynamic methods and takes uncustomary initiatives. He behaves like a crusader, a battler, whence the nickname given him by the reporters : the sheriff.

Pomme is a meek and mild French beautician whose life takes a fateful turn during a vacation to Normandy. She becomes the lover of middle-class literature-student François. The relationship sours when François takes her home to meet his parents, thanks in no small part to their differing social backgrounds.

In Paris, the young photographer Ferdinand falls in love with Claire, a pickpocket. Shortly after, he is assaulted because he took pictures of the young woman with another man, Brady, his sponsor. The policeman Lorenzi is put on the case, but in love, Ferdinand does not want to denounce her. However, a stolen object that she offered him will allow his indictment: Claire will spend a year in prison. When she is released, Ferdinand marries her. Kerman, Ferdinand's new boss, employs Claire in his cabaret. She puts on a famous act during which she picks the pockets of the spectators, then gives the objects back at the end of the show. But Brady reappears, demanding 80% of the young woman's earnings, otherwise he will denounce Claire's bigamy, to whom he is still married! Ferdinand prepares to flee with his wife. When he finds her, he comes across the corpse of Brady, whom Claire has just killed.

Three episodes from the history of socialism: Babeuf, whose virulent discourse is a radical assessment of the bourgeois revolution of 1789 (Vincent Nordon episode); the legend of Napoleon I, or the formation of the state as it still dominates today (François Barat episode); and the carnage of the Paris Commune, which official history strives to repress and forget (Joël Farges episode). What does it mean to make a historical film today? It means illuminating the present in the light of the past, and therefore adopting the new modes of modern storytelling to challenge what dominates us, structures us, and oppresses us.