The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting

The New City

Short documentary film on the construction of the new town, Marne-la-Vallée.

The One-Eyed Man

With his body now devoid of substance and able to fly, N. wanders looking for a way to return to life and reintegrate into the world.

Dans un miroir

A man comes to visit an acquaintance who is supposed to be sick and talks to his sister while he is waiting.

Of Great Events and Ordinary People

In 1978, Ruiz was commissioned to make a television documentary about the French elections from the viewpoint of a Chilean exile in Paris’ eleventh arrondissement. But, contrary to the producers’ expectation, the Left lost. Ruiz seized on this anti-climax to make a documentary about nothing except itself – a film whose central subject is forever lost in digression and ‘dispersal’, harking back to his Chilean experiments of the ‘60s. Its political content is deliberately left negligible: it’s hard to tell at the end who did actually win the election, let alone why.

Manuel on the Island of Wonders

This three part French TV serial for children (alternate versions exist as a feature, Manoel’s Destinies, and a 4 part Portuguese TV serial, Adventure in Madeira) is the favourite of many devotees of Raúl Ruiz. This is because it ties the enchantment and mystery of Lewis Carroll, Carlo Collodi and the Brothers Grimm to the filmmaker’s experiments with narrative strategies and what he calls the pentaludic model of storytelling (where characters are thrown dice-like into combinations and situations governed by the play of Chance and Destiny).

Palombella rossa

Michele is an MP for the Italian Communist Party who loses his memory in a car crash, though hardly anyone around him seems to notice. During a crucial water polo match on the eve of election day, he gradually begins to remember his past life, revealing a man whose personal and political identity crisis mirrors that of Italian communism itself.

Richard III

Richard of Gloucester uses murder and manipulation to claim England's throne.

Médée: Chronique d’une mise en scène

A chronicle of Raúl Ruiz’s production of Michèle Reverdy’s opera “Médée”.

Mysteries of Lisbon

The tragic story of the many lives of Father Dinis, his dark origins and his pious works, and the different fates of all those who, trapped in a sinister web of love, hate and crime, cross paths with him through years of adventure.

Manoel’s Destinies

When the child Manuel wanders into a garden that is off-limits to him, he meets an unidentified fisherman, and another boy -- the boy is actually himself several years down the road. Manuel experiences three different versions of his encounters in the garden, revealing that fate can have several twists and turns in one's life, depending on decisions that are made early on.

The Divisions of Nature

Ruiz on the film: "Les Divisions is a documentary about the Château de Chambord and the title comes from the Divisione of Johannes Scotus (Erigena), the ninth century Irish philosopher (who was a 'realist', although the film is more 'nominalist' in characterization of the castle which presents itself as a representation). I say that it is a representation, since it is neither practical for military purposes (too many doors), nor to live in (too many draughts), but only as pure representation. So for the commentary, I tried to imagine how a Renaissance philosopher would view it in a pastiche of a scholastic or gothic text, then a pastiche of Fichte's Vocation of Man and finally a pastiche of Baudrillard."

Dark at Noon

In this mystical comedy, Felicien has traveled to Portugal from France soon after the end of the First World War. It seems that his recently deceased father had invested a lot of money in a factory located in a remote village, and he has come to evaluate that investment. He gets some clues to the real situation in the town when the man driving his coach refuses to go any further and leaves him on a section of road which is practically paved with abandoned crutches. After a short trek, he meets up with the local dignitary who is to show him around, and he meets a priest and an artist. The priest gives a further clue to the events taking place in the village when he indicates that he's completely exasperated with the endless miracles that seem to be taking place. From that point onward, amazing coincidences, visions and miracles take place in great numbers.

The Suspended Vocation

The film centers on a Dominican monk named Jérôme (played by one actor in colour and another actor in black-and-white) and his interactions with various higher-ups within the French Catholic Church. Ruiz's intention was to reflect the ideological arguments that plagued Latin American left-wing political parties.

To Each His Own Cinema

Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, "To Each His Own Cinema" brought together 33 of the world's pre-eminent filmmakers to produce short pieces exploring the multifarious facets of cinema and their perspective on the state of their chosen artform in the early 21st century.

Mysteries of Lisbon

The tragic story of the many lives of Father Dinis, his dark origins and his pious works, and the different fates of all those who, trapped in a sinister web of love, hate and crime, cross paths with him through years of adventure and misfortune in the convulsed Europe of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. (A longer television version of the film of the same name, released in 2010.)

Time Regained

In early 1920s France, an author, lying on his deathbed, looks at various photographs and is flooded with memories of the people and events that have shaped his life.