Les Films 13

Filmmakers from all over the world provide short films – each of which is eleven minutes, nine seconds, and one frame of film in length – that offer differing perspectives on the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The film follows four families, with different nationalities (French, German, Russian and American) but with the same passion for music, from the 1930s to the 1960s. The various story lines cross each other time and again in different places and times, with their own theme scores that evolve as time passes. The main event in the film is the Second World War, which throws the stories of the four musical families together and mixes their fates. Although all characters are fictional, many of them are loosely based on historical musical icons (Édith Piaf, Josephine Baker, Herbert von Karajan, Glenn Miller, Rudolf Nureyev, etc.) The Boléro dance sequence at the end brings all the threads together.

A man and a woman meet by accident on a Sunday evening at their childrens' boarding school. Slowly, they reveal themselves to each other, finding that each is a widow.

Jean-Louis and Anne have had their fling and separated. Now 20 years have passed. He is still dating various women. She is now a big-time director whose most recent film was a very expensive bomb. She comes up with the idea of making a romance based upon her fling with Jean-Louis. She contacts him to gain his permission. Jean-Louis is still in racing and goes away for a desert rally while she begins filming. She finds the mood of their romance difficult to recapture in her film.

A foundling, raised in the circus, Sam Lion becomes a businessman after a trapeze accident. However, when he reaches fifty and becomes tired of his responsibilities and of his son Jean-Philippe, he decides to disappear at sea. However, he runs into Albert Duvivier, one of his former employees. He comes to realise that he has ignored the important things in his life.

In France during World War II, a poor and illiterate man, Henri Fortin, is introduced to Victor Hugo's classic novel Les Misérables and begins to see parallels between the book and his own life.

When they realize the times are changing, five crooks decide to switch from bank robberies to personality abductions.

A composer and a French film star, both of whom are married to others, meet and fall in love while shooting a film in the United States.

Before being judges, attorneys, or jury members, they are first of all men and women at a crossroads in their lives, with their dreams and their secrets, their hopes and their limitations, all beneath the same sun, each with their own dark side. In a lovely provincial town, during a jazz festival, life will juggle with their destinies.

A successful film composer falls in love when he travels to India to work on a Bollywood retelling of Romeo and Juliet.

They knew each other long ago: a man and a woman whose dazzling and unexpected romance captured in the now-iconic film revolutionized our understanding of love. Today, the former race car driver seems lost in the pathways of his memory. In order to help him, his son seeks out the woman his father wasn’t able to cherish but whom he constantly revisits in his thoughts and dreams. Anne reunites with Jean-Louis and their story picks up where they left it…

Released from prison under a New Year amnesty, a criminal tries to pick up the threads of a life changed not only by his daring plan to rob a jewelry store in out-of-season Cannes, but also by a very special someone he met there.

A jaded and charming police inspector is assigned along with his cheerful partner to a case involving the mysterious death and/or suicide of a wealthy entrepreneur. The chief suspect is his enchanting wife who was aware that her husband had a mistress. It is also possible that the dead man may be the victim of a radical terrorist group.

In an increasingly crazy world, Lino, who has decided to leave everything behind, will come to realise that, at the end of the day, everything that happens to us is for our own good!

The movie starts with an interview with director Claude Lelouch. He pleads viewers not to disclose the plot of the movie after leaving the projection room. Even the movie's trailer shows only a long sequence of faces gazing speechlessly in space. "Like all my movies, this one is about a man and a woman", says Lelouch in the interview.

A thief known as Simon the Swiss faces up and downs in his criminal profession.

Upon their release from prison twen­ty years ear­li­er, Gérard, Ary and Philippe asked them­selves if hon­esty was not the best rack­et of them all. Today, they are insep­a­ra­ble and scrupu­lous­ly above board. But Gérard learns he is ter­mi­nal­ly ill. Their friend’s days being num­bered, Ary and Philippe want to offer him one last love sto­ry… because, as Gérard likes to say : love is bet­ter than life.

Young Jeanne falls in love with photographer Francis, who soon takes her with him when he emigrates to America. In a small town in the still wild west, they build up a small photo shop. Meanwhile, animal doctor David lives on his lonesome farm together with his unlucky wife. It takes years and two tragic accidents until Jeanne and David meet. She has already decided to return to France as soon as possible, but love, and fate, have other plans.

Benoit Blanc loves living, he loves women, he loves daring. He is a famous businessman who suffers from stomach-ache. Fabiolini, a would-be actor, is a policeman and he too suffers from the same sickness. The two man face suffering in opposite ways: Benoit Blanc is optimistic while Fabiolini, always unsure of himself, is persuaded he is seriously ill. The two men meet by chance while doing a gastroscopy and become friends. After having known their real different conditions, they will change and will understand better their lives. Around them, other people, women and men, will see their lives changed, by chance, by love or solely by the life stream.

Catherine and Marcello are secluded in their house, living under the candlelight. Unable to accept the injustice behind the loss of their nine-month-old baby, they face a slow but definite self-destruction.