The Purloined Letter

An adaptation of the novel 813, in which the gentleman burglar competes to steal state papers and tries to uncover the identity of a terrifying murderer.

"I was interested by the fact that some old guy, after the Parthenon’s glamour, devoted himself in a much smaller temple, where there was no white marble, no nothing. All Greek temples are dedicated to Apollo etc, and this particular one was not dedicated to anyone and is in a place where there never was a city nearby, in a kind of wasteland, in a ditch. But, just by going up a bit –you are in the centre of Peloponissos- on a clear day, you can see the sea on both your left and right. I went back there, at least six, seven or eight times, as if I wanted to think or find myself. So, at the temple in Bassae, I made a short 10 minute film and I was lucky enough to encounter two days of clouds and mist between the columns."

In June 1944, a young doctor, Chevalier, under the threat of guns, is forced to treat a wounded man in a camp of resistance fighters (maquisards). He recognizes the man, minister of the Third Republic, called Morel by his companions. Carnot, the chief of the maquisards, is suspicious of a doctor who expressly disapproves of the resistance and wants to have him shot as soon as he has treated Morel. Philippe, who is second in command, intervenes in favor of the Chevalier. Meanwhile, peasants denounce the maquisards to the Nazis and the camp is surrounded by the Germans. The camp is saved thanks to Philippe who takes command of the group. He decides to leave the shelter and they begin the long march through the Cévennes to rally maquisard Napoleon in the Vercors...

An adaptation of the novel 813, in which the gentleman burglar competes to steal state papers and tries to uncover the identity of a terrifying murderer.

Michel Contat is Emeritus Director of Research at the CNRS, ITEM/CNRS/ENS and a specialist of Jean-Paul Sartre whose novels and theater he has edited in the Pléiade edition and about whom he has written several books. With Alexander Astruc, he made the film Sartre par lui-même (1976) and, with Antoine Burnier, co-wrote the script of Claude Garretta’s TV film Sartre, L’Age des passions (2006). As a journalist, Contat contributed literary columns for Le Monde since 1978, and as an amateur musician, he was the jazz columnist for the magazine Télérama. His most recent books are Pour Sartre (2006) and André Gorz; vers la société libérée (2009).

A fictitious biography of Jacques Offenbach and Hortense Schneider.

A twenty year old Anouk Aimée stars as Albertine, the daughter of a bourgeois couple who house a young officer during the Napoleonic wars. Newly promoted, the officer (Jean-Claude Pascal) is quartered by a dull bourgeois couple who treat him with a cold politeness bordering on indifference.

Adaptation of the Balzac story as told by Rosalie, a young girl in love with the idea of her extraordinary neighbor, Albert Savarus, and the lengths she goes to ensure their marriage, even after she learns he is deeply in love with another woman.

Convinced that his family is tainted by generations of evil, Roderick Usher is hellbent on stopping his sister Madeline’s wedding to prevent the cursed Usher bloodline from expanding. When her fiancé Alain arrives at the crumbling estate to claim his bride, Roderick goes to ruthless—even deadly—lengths to keep them apart.

Two adaptations. First, "Le Rideau cramoisi" by Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly is about a young second lieutenant of hussars, garrisoned in the provinces, who evokes a strange adventure. Staying with an old couple, he acts as acquaintance with Albertine, the daughter of his hosts, fell in love with her and, after paying her assiduous courtship, made her his mistress. But one night, she died in his arms. He tried in vain to get rid of the corpse and ended up run away. Second, "Mina de Vanghel" by Stendhal is about Mina, a young German, who came to settle in France with her mother in 1820. Her father, a deceased Prussian general, left her a immense fortune. Courted, she falls in love with Monsieur de Ruppert, a ruined man whose castle her mother bought. But Mina does not take long to unmask the dowry hunter.

A haunting short version of Edgar Allan Poe's famous story about a cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on a victim of the Spanish Inquisition...

Catherine Racan, a young journalist who always puts her career over her love life, is brought in by the police for questioning. They are looking for a doctor who illegally performs abortions and now they are interrogating all of his previous clients.

Anna, twenty-seven, married to building contractor Eric, refuses to live in his wake. Craving independence, she can exist through the art gallery she runs, but isn’t this occupation a mere wholesome distraction? When she meets Bruno and becomes his lover she thinks she will find fulfillment only to realize that she is just another plaything in a man’s hands.

Galois is practicing shooting in preparation for a duel the very next day. His last night.

The film tells the story of the Yugoslav destroyer Zagreb which fights against Germany in 1941, and how some of the crew members try to organise a mutiny to keep fighting when the commander is ordered to surrender.