Lee Chang-dong: The Art of Irony

Anne Laugel, a young divorced woman, mother of a ten-year-old girl, Sophie, travels to China to adopt a baby. She is convinced, as a good Westerner, to carry out this adventure for the happiness of the new born, her daughter and hers.

In 1977, one year after Mao died, a French man ( played by Alain Bashung) comes back to China to work as a school teacher with his daughter. He quickly ignores the interdiction of getting in touch with Chinese people and finds himself drawn into mysterious meetings at the Red Pavilion. MY CHINESE SISTER is a movie about pretense and the mystification of reality.

The narrator looks for Khema, a missing shaman singer in Laos. His investigation progressively becomes an initiatic travel among outcasts, renowned for their magical powers, accused to be "phipop", supernatural creatures behaving like vampires, still terrifying laotian villagers. This traveller's diary in search of ghosts through the forests, is a true story which looks like a chamanic tale. For most Laotian people, the invisible world of spirits is more real than what we call reality in modern western life. This film shows this "other laotian reality", mixing rational and objective facts with events born from collective unconsciousness. Is it a documentary or fiction ? This question is the main theme of the film.

In 1967, in the middle of the Chinese cultural revolution, an opera singer is sent to the other side of the country to be "re-educated". He leaves behind his young pregnant wife. Seven years later, rehabilitated, he is allowed to return to his native village. He will not find his wife, who has since died. And one thought obsesses him: How to recognize his child, whom he has never seen, how to go to meet him?

Chinese opera, whether of the Peking variety or not, is a very demanding art-form, requiring decades of study to be even partly mastered. In this film, Yan Yuejun was a Soochow Opera performer who fell afoul of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, and who has served his time undergoing compulsory "re-education." Now he is living in Inner Mongolia, driving a truck for a living, which is surely proletarian enough to suit his earlier tormentors.

A study of Holy Week (Semana Santa) in Seville, Spain.

"Shot in Madrid, in a carnival. The subject of the film is suggested by the spanish title. From "roda", I kept 2 connected meanings : the circular motion and movie shooting. As for "Morfosis", it is linked to the idea of metamorphosis. With the whole word, I wanted to suggest a metamorphosis of reality (places and characters) in a motion where everything is going round circles : what is on camera, camera itself and film inside."

Here the codes are both amplified and distanced by an expressionist plastic that for the first time perhaps in Expressionism, takes humor into account. Some very close-ups of flowers, insects, are reminiscent of the prose of a Caillois that I did not know until this film equivalent cinema. There is a double movement in this film. At the same time, a sort of restraint of the plans and a bulimia, a frenzy to film, perhaps this is what mainly troubles us and takes us into a way of seeing that was unknown to us.

The action takes place in Burma. Thiri, who dreams of becoming a writer, falls in love with a European traveller. Momo thinks he can read the mind of a mysterious Western hermit who looks like Christ. Ada, because she is in love with a monk, is ready to become a nun. Through the intertwined paths of those three female characters, this movie depicts the reality of Burma now, an Asian country undergoing major changes and facing the Western world.

To date, there have been no studies on mental illness in Burma. Today, psychiatry and psychotherapy in Myanmar are still in their infancy. The only two psychiatric hospitals in this country of 56 million people refuse any contact with the media. But I was able to stay as a nursing assistant in a unique facility near Rangoon that is open to all mentally ill people excluded from Burmese society, much like the hospices of old in Europe. Seemingly carrying a message of peaceful coexistence in a country torn by ethnic and religious tensions, this center struck me from the outset as enigmatic and mysterious in its operations. (Alain Mazars)

A girl uses spiritualism to escape her loneliness and neurasthenia. Inspired by practices more or less close to magic, she tries to create two characters that will be part of herself. She will be able to live without being alone, while fleeing the external reality. But little by little, the two beings that she created appear to be detached from her, as if the figure three could not agree to the harmony of the group. Her fantasies seem to turn against her, increasing her sense of isolation.

Special Jury Mention at Hyères International Film Festival in 1983. "When my eyes, closed for an icy terror, opened again, at my side, scented on the canvas, these faces were shaking confusingly."

It is an experimental film where the filmmaker questions the desire of a film viewer to narrate. This film revives the spirit of research that began with silent cinema, with musical compositions as essential as the dialogue in a feature-length talking film. The ruins of the title visually represent an aspiration to rebuild another world from the old. Finally, the film questions the possibility of a child proceeding to this reconstruction from a narrative where the elusive meaning of everything around him is to be reinvented

An old Eurasian backpacker dreams of becoming a shaman. A rumor is spreading in South-East Asia saying that nomads hidden in a forest can raise the dead. A criminal kills the travelers he meets.

A young aristocrat is seduced by a young man who appeared to her in a dream one spring afternoon. Captive of this impossible love, the young girl is dying of melancholy. But the constancy of her love is stronger than death; she wins the pity of the judge of the underworld, manages to find her lover and come back to life. The opera "The Peony Pavilion" was composed in 1598 by the poet Tang Xianzu (1550-1617), one of the greatest playwrights of the Ming period. Of all the forms of Chinese opera that have followed one another since the 12th century, the kunqu is the one that best preserves the image of a classical art highly appreciated in educated circles for its musical, literary and gestural refinement.

This film from the human fascination with immortalié stone, described by Roger Caillois in his book STONES. A cult of the stone has a long history in Asian countries like China and Japan. Moving from the mountain to the sea, the film unfolds like a dream incantatory which is the theme: In China, a mountain of Tséchouan, it is said that there was once a stone that had children. Beyond their age difference and the distance between them, those who dream of one stone are in constant contact. Fascinated by the same stone, their thoughts, their gestures, their desires end up merging. One day they will be reunited in a garden called the Garden of the ages. It describes the garden as the meeting in the same place and the same time the four seasons of life: the birth of spring, summer childhood, fall of man becomes an adult, the old man winter. This garden is both in and out, like a large house containing its own garden.

When a legendary thief sets his sights on the Mona Lisa, he recruits two young strangers to help him before revealing they are long-lost siblings… and oh yes, by the way, he is their father. Thrown into a chaotic reunion they never asked for, this new family must learn to work together — and try not to kill each other — if they want any chance at pulling off the heist of the century.

After a chance encounter sparks a sweeping romance, Maya's future is suddenly upended, sending her on an unexpected journey to love and live again.

Will Radford is a top analyst for Homeland Security who tracks potential threats through a mass surveillance program, until one day an attack by an unknown entity leads him to question whether the government is hiding something from him... and from the rest of the world.

Olive Smith, a biology PhD candidate, and Dr. Adam Carlsen, a hotshot professor and well-known tyrant, enter into a fake relationship, seeing each of their carefully calculated theories on love get thrown into chaos.

Noah must leave her city, boyfriend, and friends to move into William Leister's mansion, the flashy and wealthy husband of her mother Rafaela. As a proud and independent 17 year old, Noah resists living in a mansion surrounded by luxury. However, it is there where she meets Nick, her new stepbrother, and the clash of their strong personalities becomes evident from the very beginning.

George Hardy is a shepherd who reads detective novels to his beloved sheep every night, assuming they can't possibly understand. But when a mysterious incident disrupts life on the farm, the sheep realize they must become the detectives. As they follow the clues and investigate human suspects, they prove that even sheep can be brilliant crime-solvers.

Estranged half-brothers Jonny and James reunite after their father's mysterious death. As they search for the truth, buried secrets reveal a conspiracy threatening to tear their family apart.

Ry, a college student with a chronic illness, escapes to Mallorca for the summer with her mother, where she unexpectedly falls for a local and begins to embrace living in the moment. But as her condition worsens and long-hidden family secrets come to light, everything she has found before summer's end is threatened.

After being separated for 15 years, the Sword of Power leads Prince Adam back to Eternia, where he discovers his home shattered under the fiendish rule of Skeletor. To save his family and his world, Adam must join forces with his closest allies, Teela and Duncan/Man-At-Arms, and embrace his true destiny as He-Man — the most powerful man in the universe.

Marfil, daughter of a powerful Spanish businessman, sees her life in New York turned upside down when she is kidnapped and released without explanation. Her father hires Sebastian Moore as bodyguard and, forced to spend every minute together, an inevitable attraction ignites in a world where nothing is as it seems.

After Santa Claus (codename: Red One) is kidnapped, the North Pole's Head of Security must team up with the world's most infamous tracker in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas.

In the near future, a 'Grand Lottery' has been established - the catch: kill the winner before sundown to legally claim their multi-billion dollar jackpot. When Katie Kim mistakenly finds herself with the winning ticket, she reluctantly joins forces with amateur lottery protection agent Noel Cassidy who must get her to sundown in exchange for a piece of her prize.

Maia Marten, a brilliant London lawyer, has her life shattered by a single call on her morning run: her son has been taken. To get him back, she must keep running, obey every ruthless command, and trust no one-each second a test of how far a mother will go to save her child.

Alma Lancaster, 18, appears to lead a perfect life within a wealthy family who believes she is studying law. In secret, she pursues her true dream: filmmaking. On campus, she meets Vadim Arcadi, 20, a magnetic and solitary rebel with a troubled past. Forced to collaborate on a student film, they clash, grow closer and fall in love — despite themselves. But someone is watching them, determined to tear them apart and expose secrets that could destroy both Alma and Vadim.

The love between Noah and Nick seems unwavering despite their parents' attempts to separate them. But his job and her entry into college open up their lives to new relationships that will shake the foundations of both their relationship and the Leister family itself.

A troupe of ballerinas find themselves fighting for survival as they attempt to escape from a remote inn after their bus breaks down on the way to a dance competition.

Popular, outgoing Fujino is celebrated by her classmates for her funny comics in the class newspaper. One day, her teacher asks her to share the space with Kyomoto, a truant recluse whose beautiful artwork sparks a competitive fervor in Fujino. What starts as jealousy transforms when Fujino realizes their shared passion for drawing.

When an elusive thief whose high-stakes heists unfold along the iconic 101 freeway in Los Angeles eyes the score of a lifetime, with hopes of this being his final job, his path collides with a disillusioned insurance broker who is facing her own crossroads. Determined to crack the case, a relentless detective closes in on the operation, raising the stakes even higher.

Stephanie and Emily reunite on the beautiful island of Capri, Italy for Emily's extravagant wedding to a rich Italian businessman. Along with the glamorous guests, expect murder and betrayal to RSVP for a wedding with more twists and turns than the road from the Marina Grande to the Capri town square.

The UK Prime Minister and US President have a public rivalry that risks their countries' alliance. But when they become targets of a powerful enemy, they're forced to rely on each other as they go on a wild, multinational run. Allied with Noel, a brilliant MI6 agent, they must find a way to thwart a conspiracy that threatens the free world.