L'Énigme des sables

During an evening, men and women talk about love, life and death. One of them catches a moth and explains to the others the tragic fate of this insect. Everyone recognizes himself in the little animal.

Upset by his friend's death, the film-maker, central character in this film, decides to get in touch with the hereafter by means of a camcorder. Thus begins an initiatory voyage that is both amusing and moving. The camcorder has the power to surprise people in their authenticity, to interfere in destinies, to give access to higher states of consciousness. Where does fiction begin and end?

From his childhood in a modest family in the Pyrénées to his unexpected career as a porn actor in the 1970s, the film traces the life of Claude Loir, who set out to fully embrace life. His homosexuality and curiosity guide him through encounters that lead into the shadowy, liberated circles of a pre-AIDS era, caught between conservatism and sexual freedom. Loves and lovers, flamboyance and fragility… the film offers a striking portrait of a fearless, hedonistic man navigating desire, identity, and society’s constraints.

During the final days of World War II, a simple French peasant rescues a wounded German soldier and nurses him back to health. As their playful camaraderie grows, two young men who should be enemies begin to bond in ways neither thought possible.

Johan details the director's quest for an actor to play his titular lover, the real deal having been incarcerated just prior to shooting on charges of petty theft.

A reporter enters the world of bodybuilding at a time when there has just been a death at the gym. He befriends an unusually gregarious bodybuilder there.

As Gerard is shooting a documentary in Marrakesh, he turns his camera toward a young Moroccan boy: Saïd. A love story starts and it will bring Gerard all over Morocco. Through encounters, love adventures, youth's memories, Gerard tries to define his destiny so tied to Morocco.

Beirut in ruins in 1994, a presbytery in the heart of a French forest, a stopover in Morocco... A man destroyed by his lover's death tries to get on with life, helped by meeting a man he helps to come out.

Clement, a 60 years old teacher, retires and live alone with his Cat Zeus. One night, the cat becomes a man to entertain Clement in his loneliness and to help him accept his true sexual attraction.

Francis, a former gigolo, and Sofiane, a young undocumented prostitute, go to the Morvan to spend a week there on vacation. The day after their arrival, an unforeseen event completely questions this stay.

Thanks to his collection of personal material, Philippe Vallois tells us the story of Johan, a film inspired by his beloved; what, in 1975, was considered the first French gay auteur film.

In the mid-nineties, a young writer, victim of AIDS, wants to ensure from the beyond that his lover receives a camera with supernatural powers, hoping that this will revive his lover's will to live and connect with him.

After the death of his mother, during a stay in Morocco, the director takes again his own archive images in connection with the important moments of his life.

May 1973: By coming back from the Cannes film festival, a young hitch-hiker, lost at nightfall, finds refuge in a farm where a old man, claims his homosexuality and pretends to come from the future.

Marc, owner of a pretty mansion in Normandy, suffers from a form of dementia: he loses the meaning of words and he travels in his imagination to Asia where he had his professional life. His wife entrusts him for a while to a neighbor who tries to unravel the mysteries of his past.

May 1973: While hitchhiking home from the Cannes festival, Jean-Jacques, a young heterosexual man, rather homophobic, gets lost in the Cévennes mountains. He finds refuge with an elderly gentleman who not only admits his homosexuality, but claims to be Jean-Jacques decades later.