Pascal Jardin

Apostrophes was a live, weekly, literary, prime-time, talk show on French television created and hosted by Bernard Pivot. It ran for fifteen years (724 episodes) from January 10, 1975, to June 22, 1990, and was one of the most watched shows on French television (around 6 million regular viewers). It was broadcast on Friday nights on the channel France 2 (which was called "Antenne 2" from 1975 to 1992). The hourlong show was devoted to books, authors and literature. The format varied between one-on-one interviews with a single author and open discussions between four or five authors.

In Montauban in 1944, Julien Dandieu is a surgeon in the local hospital. Frightened by the German army entering Montauban, he asks his friend Francois to drive his wife and his daughter in the back country village where Julien has an old castle. One week later, Julien decides to meet them for the week end, but the Germans are already occupying the village.

Angélique is in a North African Muslim kingdom where she is now part of the Sultan's harem. She refuses to be bedded as her captors try to beat sense into her. She finally decides to escape with the help of two Christian prisoners.

An art dealer wants to buy a Modigliani, which is tattooed on the back of an old soldier.

The film consists of seven roughly 15 minute episodes, each showing what will happen if one or more of the Ten Commandments will be broken: Jérome Chambard is warned that he will lose his job if he continues to swear; Françoise Beaufort enamored of a stripper calls on her only to find her married to a janitor who doesn't know what kind of dancing his wife performs; Denis, a Jesuit novice, leaves the order to avenge his sister's suicide, which was provoked by Garigny, who seduced her into prostitution and drug addiction; Philip buys a necklace for Micheline though he is bored with her; a young man find out that his real mother is not Madeleine, but actress Clarisse Ardant; Didier Marin, cashier of a bank, was fired by his boss; the Devil appears as a serpent for Jérome Chambard and the bishop are eating.

The relationship between a middle-aged French widow and a young drifter takes a turn when her young niece pays a visit.

Two people, a Frenchman and a Jewish German woman, meet on a train while escaping the German army entering France.

Marseille. Heaps of flowers and funeral wreaths... "A man who no longer defends his colors is no longer a man."

Soon after her latest husband death, the King himself (Louis XIV) meets with our heroine and begs her to help convince the Persian Ambassador to agree to a treaty. However, what they didn't realize was that the handsome Persian was in fact a sexual sadist. So, it is up to the King's half- brother, some Hungarian prince, to save Angélique from the evil troll's clutches.

Guillaume has made it: A machine that can clean dirty air by simply sucking all dirt into air balloons and then shipping them far far away so his explanation. Some Japanese business guys, after dinner with a lot of alcohol, order 5,000 pieces. His only problem: His production capacity is way to small so he gets to produce the machines in his private house. His wife Bernadette is far from being happy about it. Her private life goes down the line so she decides to leave Guillaume and to finally have revenge she candidates for major against her husband...

Angelique goes in search of her husband Joffrey de Peyrac who did not die on the stake.

A stranger enters into and forever alters the life of a couple. He claims to be pursued by certain authorities who intend to prevent him from disclosing a secret that only he holds, whence the title. Is he lying, or insane - or is he telling the truth? Who, if anyone, is after him? And what *is* - the secret?

Jonas, a young drifter, is wandering in a deserted area on the road to Salina, Mexico. He stops at a desolate roadside service station when Mara, the owner, identifies him as her son Rocky, who disappeared four years ago. Feeling sorry for Mara, he decides to stay on and meets Mara's friend Warren and Rocky's sister Billie, but dark facts are to be revealed about the disappearance of Rocky.

A small-time con man on the run from the gangster-husband of his girlfriend hides out in a strange, brooding mansion run by two mysterious women, where he finds himself trapped in deception between the two women.

Two men pull off a daring daylight payroll heist in Milan, making a fast getaway. One is returning to France after years in hiding, needing money to start fresh with his family.

Auguste Maroilleur, an elderly farmer, exploits 400 hectares of crop land with the help of his family, over which he rules with an iron hand. Things go awry the day he discovers one of his grandsons is involved in drug traffic. To make matters worse, the reckless youth has hidden the white powder in the Maroilleur farm. Without a moment's hesitation, Auguste gets rid of the toxic substance but, of course, the mob has different views...

A violent and ruthless bank robber hides out from the police scouring the countryside for him in the home of a couple living far out in the desert. But the couple not only know who he is, they have secrets of their own and are just as ruthless.

Philippe, Théo and Bob share the same cell in the prison of La Santé. Philippe, a young student, known as "Sciences-Po", is planning revenge against those who sent him to prison. He offers his two fellow prisoners, seasoned mobsters, to help him recover an important document from a diamond dealer in Le Havre. This paper would rehabilitate his father, his two comrades being able to keep the diamonds contained in the safe... But the coup does not go as planned.

Julien Dandieu, leader of the socialist political party PRU is asked to be part of the new conservative government as minister of foreign affairs. However his reputation is somewhat tarnished by his adulterous relationship with Creezy, a fashion model seen on every magazine cover. Ready to sacrifice his family for his career, he is eventually faced with the ultimate choice: his career ambitions or a lifetime with his beautiful girlfriend, who has recently mysteriously disappeared.

Set amid the European community in an unspecified North African country, a colony on the verge of nationalism just before the war. And colonized is what happens to a French diplomat, Julien Rochelle, when he meets the mysterious beauty Clothilde de Watteville. Schmid 's favorite axiom, that love is projection, never had such a thorough airing. Is Clothilde really the wife of a French official now holed up in Siberia? Or is she Hecate, goddess of black magic and devourer of the Arab boys she meets far from the European quarter? Only our projections know for sure; for the rest, she is a "woman looking out into the night." Drawn from a novel by Paul Morand, who based the main character on his wife Helene, Schmid's film achieves an atmosphere of magic in which psychological credibility is not so much absent as irrelevant-a film that distances itself from the drama it invokes, perhaps as the elusive Clothilde turns her back on the madness she provokes.