Party of Fools

A dream walk through the United States of America; a meditation on the thoughts and ideals of its inhabitants, as they are exposed in their silent but eloquent home movies.

Between dance and drawings, Arnaud des Pallières relates different moments of Degas’s life and unveils some of his darker sides.

Under threat in Algeria, Ismahel emigrates to France where he wants to live and work, with the hope that the people he's fleeing from will forget him the time he is away. In the letters that he writes to the daughter that he left behind in his homeland, he tells his own story in the guise of the biblical tale of Jonas and the Whale. Somewhere in France, an elderly farmer has just lost his young son. His three other children help him as much as they can to get through the trial of the funeral, but the ceremony is halted when the old man falls ill. The two stories unfold parallel to each other and are alternated.

Director Arnaud de Pallières presents an experimental three-part film designed to stimulate the intellect and inspire reflection on the past. The first part tells the story of the last living Holocaust survivor, who is nearing the end of life and regrets not leaving behind an official record of the horrors he witnessed during the dark years of World War II. Later, a young historian researching a concentration camp in Drancy is shocked to discover that the site now houses an unwelcoming housing project called La Muette (the Silent). The trilogy winds to a close with the story of a ship's captain who recalls the time he ventured up an uncharted river towards an undiscovered civilization.

In the form of a diary and drawing on a wide range of literary references, Arnaud des Pallières delivers a critique of late capitalism and the spectacle-driven world through an examination of the famous park and its societal offshoots.

In the 16th century in the Cévennes, a horse dealer by the name of Michael Kohlhaas leads a happy and prosperous family life. When a lord treats him unjustly, this pious, upstanding man raises an army and puts the country to fire and sword in order to have his rights restored.

A young woman moves to Paris and has a brush with disaster. Grown-up at last, an accomplished woman thought she was safe from her own past. Gradually, these characters come together to form a single heroine.

Diane Wellington disappeared in South Dakota in 1938 at the age of 15. She has just be found.

A cinematic essay interweaving private archive images and a mixture of reflective, speculative and poetic intertitles that, like “an old movie from the 20th century”, invites us to meditate on what Des Pallières once liked to call “our old homeland”.

A conference given by Gilles Deleuze on the act of creation, taped on video.

Georges Nail lives in a new suburb. He's married, loves his wife, son and dog. Paul Hammer is good looking, rich and intelligent. But he is torn by his severe judgment of the world and a desire to be part of it. One day, their paths meet. Nail sees this meeting as an opportunity to create a new friendship. On his side, Hammer sees it as a new reason for living : to crucify the perfect image of the happy western man and his incarnation in the person of Georges Nail. A nail is the perfect victim for a hammer.

Schoolchildren tell stories in class. A worker goes home after his work day. A scholar explains ideas about colours and objects in ancient Greek philosophy.