In 1945, two young American soldiers, brothers Budd and Stuart Schulberg, are commissioned to collect filmed and recorded evidence of the horrors committed by the infamous Third Reich in order to prove Nazi war crimes during the Nuremberg trials (1945-46). The story of the making of Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, a paramount historic documentary, released in 1948.
Julie Andrews starred in Hollywood productions that have become iconic movies, winning an Oscar for her performance as Mary Poppins, a symbol of the magic of musicals from the 1960s. And yet, behind the squeaky-clean image hides a much more tortuous career, with its moments of glory and tough times, all of which explain the longevity of a story that is still being written.
Several elderly homosexual men and women speak frankly about their pioneering lives, their fearless decision to live openly in France at a time when society rejected them.
On his clandestine journey from Cameroon to Europe through the Sahara desert, Léonard meets Hope, a Nigerian girl who's following the same dream.
What is striking when you talk with mathematicians is that sparkle in their eyes, and their sudden joyful voice trying to share with you a concept, a theory. They continuously use words such as invention, beauty, freedom. You then ask yourself : how such a rich language, this quasi-philosophical proposition about the world becomes rejected by a majority, 'the only discipline where one prides itself to be bad at it'!
The story of Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) and his masterpiece, The Gulag Archipelago, published in Paris in 1973, which forever shook the very foundations of communist ideology.
In November 15, 2017, the painting Salvator Mundi, attributed to Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), was sold for an unprecedented $450 million. An examination of the dirty secrets of the art world and the surprising story of how a work of art is capable of upsetting both personal and geopolitical interests.
A reckoning of Nazi Germany’s planned execution of its own citizens with physical and mental disabilities whom they deemed useless to their society.
Gene Kelly is a legend of the heyday of the Hollywood musical. His name stands for masterpieces such as "Singin' in the Rain" and "An American in Paris". As a singer, dancer, actor, choreographer and director, he was a true all-round artist who revolutionized the world of dance in particular. Kelly, who loved to experiment, explored new forms of dance expression and helped a whole generation of young talents to fame. From his beginnings in cabarets and on Broadway to his recognition as a choreographer and director, the documentary shows how the good-looking star with a charming smile expanded the boundaries of dance expression: He danced in the open air in the streets of New York, with a cartoon character or his own reflection. But this dazzling entertainer image should not obscure the fact that Kelly, as a staunch supporter of the American civil rights movement, also saw dancing as a political statement.
Moscow, Russia, December 2016. Edward Snowden, Larry Lessig and Birgitta Jónsdóttir meet for the first time in a secret place. Apparently, Russia is interfering in the US presidential elections while it mourns the death of its ambassador to Turkey. Snowden carefully chooses his interviews, so nobody really knows something about him. As the world prepares for Christmas, they gather to discuss the only issue that matters, their common struggle: how to save democracy.
They have no roots, no seeds, no flowers, but mosses show immense survival capacities and can suspend their biological activity for long periods. Today, researchers are exploring the exceptional resistance of these archaic organisms. British ecologists have even resurrected a "zombie" moss that has been trapped in the permafrost for 1,500 years. Associated with decay and disliked in Europe, mosses are deified in Japan. With 25,000 species worldwide, bryophytes - their scientific name - are the seat of real ecosystems, and can develop in inhospitable landscapes, through an extravagant reproduction cycle.
On October 27, 2005, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré died in an electrical substation while fleeing the police, sparking three weeks of riots across France. A decade later, as the officers involved are acquitted, the film revisits the voices of those who lived through the uprising. Through their stories, it explores what remains of that anger and how their view of society has evolved.
Actresses' hairstyle in movies always carries a strong aesthetic statement associated with erotic, social, and historical meanings. In a bold and unexpected way, the film revisits this ultimate symbol of femininity in international cinema.
Juste wanders the streets of Paris looking for people only he can see. He collects their last memory before helping them into the afterlife. One day Agathe, a young woman, recognizes him. She belongs to his previous life. She is alive and he is a ghost. How will they manage to love each other and seize this second chance?
A breathtaking investigation into blockbusters, a film genre that enjoys worldwide success yet keeps its secret weapon well hidden backstage in Hollywood. The blockbuster appeals to a very wide audience, from 7 to 77 years and from Paris to Beijing. These films, which have boosted the film industry, started out with "Jaws" and "Star Wars" and are still prospering with Avatar or Alice in Wonderland. To succeed, the films must meet a few precise criteria, one of them being their cost - at 100 million dollars minimum. But in Hollywood, the films' ingredients are a well-kept secret; perhaps for fear of discovering that the studios' house rules are not as rosy as in certain fruitful happy endings? The pressure and the stakes are colossal. This fascinating documentary reviews the numerous professions affiliated with the blockbuster, via interviews with producers of the major studios (Walt Disney Studio, 20th Century Fox...)...
The fascinating and little-known story of the secretarial profession, which tells the story of the evolution of women's work, between emancipation, invisibility and the glass ceiling.
To be in Venice and see the architecture of New York, to perceive in a painting by Tintoretto the birth of animated images, to look at the burlesque Cretinetti as the ancestor of montage - so many shifts, displacements, and striking telescopings that Philippe-Alain Michaud proposes in this film dedicated to him. To follow this art historian, curator of the cinema collections at the Centre Pompidou, is to go from the oriental carpet to the film, or from the first fireworks to the cinema. And everywhere the animation of the images - projections of Antony McCall, or of Paul Sharits, Column without end of Brancusi, Pasolini's Accatone - everything moves! Under the tutelage of Aby Warburg, the great art historian of the early twentieth century, precursor of iconology and image comparison, to whom Philippe-Alain Michaud was the first in France to devote an important essay, eleven images are placed on the table to describe the singular journey of this art historian.
Teen movies have had a great impact on the movie industry - especially in the 80s. This documentary takes a closer look at the genre's origins and the impact it has made up till today.
