Custody of the Child

Six-episode film Directed by Maurice Champreux and Louis Feuillade.

When a bandit captures a medieval Italian city, he imprisons and threatens to execute the betrothed of the city's absent ruler, who must return in time to rescue his beloved and save the city.

Pisa, 1494. Young Severo, who has sworn to stab the tyrant in his town, learns that it is his own father.

Paris is prey to an invisible terror against which the police can do nothing: a sinister organization that sows chaos and death. The intrepid journalist Philippe Guérande and his partner embark on a long crusade to put an end to the crimes of the Great Vampire and Irma Vep, his dangerous accomplice. (A ten episode movie serial.)

A French silent film serial which follows the exploits of the archvillain Fantômas, who commits crimes while eluding Inspector Juve's tireless persecution.

Georges Franju's Judex is an arch, playful tribute to the serials of the influential silent filmmaker Louis Feuillade. Franju shuffles through the plot of Feuillade's lengthy serial of the same name, about an adventurer named Judex whose revenge against the corrupt banker Favraux unleashes a complicated series of schemes.

When an unscrupulous banker ruins his family, a young man swears to bring him to justice, so he adopts a new identity, the mysterious Judex, and ominously disguised and sunk into the muddy path of vengeance, punishes the crooks and protects the innocents. (Originally a twelve-part epic serial.)

When he goes to Paris an aristocrat steps into a cinema and is shocked by something he sees on screen.

If you’re already familiar with Louis Feuillade, his little-known opus Vendémiaire may come as a surprise. Unlike the bulk of his work which was characterised as ‘Fantastic Realism’, Vendémiaire is wonderfully down-to-earth realism – or down-to-French-earth realism to be specific. The film itself is divided into four chapters, the titles of which suggest that this is a movie about the cultivation and consumption of wine. But as the narrative unfolds, it becomes clear that the cultivation and consumption of wine is an allegory for French culture and French land as a whole, and the real purpose of the film is to persuade the director’s fellow citizens to defend that spirit and those lands at all costs. It’s September 1918 and the war is coming to an end, but here on the Castelviel estate in the south of France the news has not yet arrived and everyone is busy with the grape harvest....

A mother (Renee Carl) goes to see a palm reader who informs her that a loved one is about to die. The woman doesn't know if it's her son or her husband (Rene Navarre) but history buffs will know who it is as it's April 10, 1912 and the husband is about to board the Titanic.

A silent French film depicting the story of the nativity.

A short from Feuillade's Bébé series

Rudolph Strelitz, known as 'Barrabas', is the leader of a brutal underground gang causing chaos and destruction in the lives of civilized people. A lawyer, Claude Varèse, is strongly determined to bring Strelitz to justice for the purpose of revenge, after his father was unjustly guillotined for the murder of Laure d'Hérigny, the mistress of an American millionaire. Later, the sister of Claude Varèse, Françoise, is kidnapped by Dr Lucius, one of the henchmen of Barrabas. Serialised over 12 chapters.