Fabienne Babe

Marcello Mastroianni, Isabelle Adjani, Alain Delon, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen... the biggest stars in cinema were welcomed by Christian Defaye on his show Spécial cinéma. Between intimate confessions from actors and immersion in the world of the greatest filmmakers, Christian Defaye took viewers on a journey into the fascinating world of cinema for nearly thirty years.

A masterful soldier, tactician and statesmen, Napoleon Bonaparte's courage and love for his country sees him rise from an unpaid general consumed with ambition to the most powerful man in Europe, then his fall, and exile.

Twenty years ago, Robert left his home in the provincial northern town of Boulogne to make it as an actor. His career never amounted to much, as he managed only a couple of acting jobs on TV. Without warning, he returns to his hometown and drops in on his sister who is in the throes of a sordid affair with her married boss. Later, Robert drops in on his younger brother, who lives with his elderly mother. As the film progresses, it quietly, sensitively depicts Robert's disruption of the lives of the members of his family.

In the middle of the night, someone brings Ivan's body home to his wife and his young son. Flashbacks reveal the relationships among Ivan and his brother Alex, a cop with a cleanliness fetish; siblings Juliette and Jimmy, Ivan's partners in a seedy nightclub; the love triangle of Alex, Juliette, and Marie, a professor of philosophy; and of Alex and his nephew, Ivan's dour, stoic son. Ivan's death changes every relationship.

In 1930s south of France, young orphan Roch is adopted by the wealthy Earnshaw family and moves into their estate, Wuthering Heights. Soon, the new resident falls for his compassionate foster sister, Cathy. The two share a remarkable bond that seems unbreakable until Cathy, feeling the pressure of social convention, suppresses her feelings and marries Lindon, a man of means who befits her stature. Roch vows to win her back.

Paul, a former insurer, is struggling to make ends meet. He agrees to meet Sarrebry, a loan shark introduced to him by his friend Daubelle. Paul mortally knocks out the disgusting crook and steals a large sum of money from him.

In this mock documentary, television journalist Christie and her camera crew trace the history and nefarious exploits of the new terrors of the French criminal underworld. The "Old School" Gang are four young men who grew up in the same orphanage; led by Letiole, they affect outlandish mid-'70s fashions and a retro-gangster/neo-blaxploitation persona as they rob, loot, and shoot their way through the seamy underbelly of Paris.

In 1937, the young French engineer Jo Dupuche landed a job in Ecuador, with the promise of a better life. While he stops on a Caribbean island, he discovers that the mine where he was hired has gone bankrupt and finds himself penniless. Trapped with his wife in the tropics, the couple must cope. While his wife finds work thanks to white settlers, Jo is housed in a ghetto where he forms a romantic relationship with a young prostitute. Shot on 35mm in Cuba at the end of the 1980s with all the constraints inherent to the country, this TV film paints an uncompromising picture of colonialism in line with the eponymous novel by Simenon (1934).

Nicole's pregnancy test is conclusive: she is pregnant. At fifty-four, Nicole is anything but prepared for this discovery. Down-to-earth and pragmatic, not prone to despair or doubt, she usually strives to be the pillar of a family on which everyone ultimately depends. With her full-time job as a toll booth cashier, she manages to feed her little world and keep the house running. But this news shakes the family a little.

A survey of various gay cruising sites around France.

Arnaud and Guillaume are in their last year of high school. Summer is approaching and like any teenager, they're thinking about cigarettes, alcohol and sex. But boys or girls? Future looks so blurry when you're a teenager!

Lake Lucerne in 1868: a passionate and forbidden affair flares up between the gifted composer Richard Wagner and the much younger Cosima von Bülow - the aristocrat is already married and the mother of four children. Contrary to all conventions, the two publicly confess their love - and break a social taboo in the process.

No description available.

Persona Non Grata in his homeland, protest singer Klaus Drittemann must leave East Berlin, his wife and child and emigrate to the West, where representatives of an American record company are eagerly awaiting him. They plan to exploit his defection from communism both ideologically and financially. But Klaus, as ill-at-ease in the West as in the East, is reluctant to be an expendable commodity. Leaving his contract unsigned (or signed in his manner), he departs for Cambridge to meet his father, a concert player, who left East Berlin when Klaus was young. He is accompanied by a young French journalist, Emma, who claims to have knowledge of where his father has been living since he disappeared for more than a decade.

At his grand-mother's death, Jean, a fourteen-year old teenager inherits the file of a mysterious court case from 1895. Fascinated by this archive, both real and fictitious, Jean becomes the judge of a criminal case completed more than a century ago.

In a French prison, three men are coming to terms with the emotional and physical torment which their incarceration brings them. Arnaud is serving a six-month sentence for drug smuggling; he protests his innocence and will do anything to secure an early release. Francky is a hardened criminal who has all but lost his wife and family and who seeks comfort in self-inflicted abuse. Kader is in prison for theft; he is the most philosophical of the three men, he is growing accustomed to prison life and seems to prefer it to the world outside.

In this "inside look" at French filmmaking, Marechal - who is a has-been director - a producer, Vito Catene and Camile Dor, a big-name actress, have agreed to make a film about drugs, but don't have a story, financing, or any of the other elements needed to make it. This doesn't stop them; they cobble together the financing and begin shooting anyway. The producer is very fond of the leading actress, and when she gets hooked on drugs for real in the course of shooting what he feels to be a farcical imitation of a film, he gives up his shares in the film and heads off for the back of beyond (Zanzibar) to lick his wounds. To add insult to injury, the film winds up being a critical and commercial success.

A woman discovers curious erotic messages on a lost cell phone in the train. When she meets the owner of the phone, a liberated young woman, the two of them embark on an erotic journey.

Marie leaves home to study the piano at the conservatory in Lyons. Through lack of money, she is obliged to share an apartment with Emma, a friend of the family who has lived alone since the death of her father. The two young women develop a strange fascination for one another, which soon develops into an intense mutual need...

Angelo and two of his buddies set out to rob a Swiss bank, and from the start things don't go well. The man driving the getaway car packed up and left before anyone could connect him with the crime, and Angelo's other partner got shot and killed. The best he can do is grab someone's cash-filled briefcase and take a car and its driver hostage. It turns out that the driver is the daughter of the bank director, so he figures that she's good for ransom money and begins negotiations for that. Meanwhile, the briefcase he took at the bank turns out to have belonged to a man who is willing to hire killers to get it back for him. The situation grows increasingly perilous for him, and he decides to flee the scene but not before he has won the heart of his lovely hostage.