Pierre Schoendoerffer: La peine des hommes

When the War of Independence ends, a widow must find a roof for her six children. Luckily, a Frenchman about to leave offers her the house he is about to vacate. But a high-placed local bureaucrat does not agree to such a gift. After losing all hope of obtaining the property due to the bias of the local authorities, she decides to go to the capital with her children to speak to the president of the Republic.

Alberto is 40 years old and lives with his mother in an apartment complex where he works as a concierge. One day, a circus group settles near Alberto’s residence, disturbing his everyday life and awakening his forgotten desire for independence and freedom.

In a big isolated house, Mikael, a musician, is composing a psalm. A young woman, Linda, comes to retreive a suitcase belonging to Sébastien, her companion and Mikael's friend. It contains hundreds of photographs from all over the world. While he is travelling, Sébastien has asked Linda to organise the photographs with a view to an exhibition. Mikael invites Linda to reside with him. She accepts. That is the heart of the film – an intertwining of photographs which, juxtaposed by Linda, begin to speak. In parallel with this, Linda receives cassette-letters from Sébastien. A subtle relationship is established between Linda, the young debutante, and Mikael, the man of experience. Mikael goes off to direct his psalm, Linda stays alone. The walls become covered with photographs – wall of happiness, wall of misery – the fight between Good and Evil. Linda learns of the accidental death of Sébastien and stays alone.

After leaving France in search of a better life in America, a television producer returns with a group of burlesque dancers to take the Paris club scene by storm.

Léo is dragged to a nudist camping resort by his mother. Like most boys at the age of 12 or 13, being nude in public holds little appeal for Léo, who protests by wearing extra layers. Until he meets a certain special girl, who captures his heart and releases his inhibitions.

A filmmaker and his crew try to enter the passionate world of Port-Royal and of Jansenism. Another Age of Louis XIV comes to life, the age of Pascal, Racine and of the “Friends of Truth”. The film itself comes up against the unanswerable question of grace.

In the late 1970s, Marcel fled Catalonia to avoid conscription into the Spanish military. For 30 years he has been living in the tropical forests of Costa Rica, where he hosts ayahuasca ceremonies for young seekers from the West.

Riad, a middle-aged man, holds a firearm shop in a neighbourhood of Beirut. When he meets up with his friends or goes hunting with them, it is often with the aim of evoking together their memories of the civil war fought in the Christian militia. They live in nostalgia for the war that impassioned their youth. Director Myriam El Hajj builds solid architectural images that interrogate — and, perhaps, over time even manage to articulate — the intimate origins of violence that never seems to depart and a past that doesn't want to let go of the present.

A young woman comes to Roissy airport to pick up a military canteen that has been returned to her. It is the effects and pictures of Jean Péraud, a reporter photographer who disappeared at Dien Bien Phu on May 8, 1954. Soon, the discussion begins between the young woman and the former press companions of Péraud who are present. Through the memories and stories she provokes, the ever-present questions about what makes the war image resurface: is the reporter a witness or a combatant? Does he protect himself from the effects of war by filming it, or does he take more risks in order to bear witness? Can we speak of art in front of this image made in the face of death?

A blown wick, a rejected corner stone, multiplied loaves, mown wheat and the mower watching us. Some Bible verses illustrated by plans stolen in the countryside during the summer.

When Théo arrives at Notre-Dame-des-Roses, Jean's world is turned upside down. Confident in the institution that claims to cure him of his homosexuality, he is fascinated by this new resident, who seems determined to follow no rules and run away to become a singer and conquer Paris.