Vichy in the Colonies (2023)

Jesse Owens et Luz Long : le temps d'une étreinte

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Narbonne: The Second Rome

More than 2.000 years ago, Narbonne in today's Département Aude was the capital of a huge Roman province in Southern Gaul - Gallia Narbonensis. It was the second most important Roman port in the western Mediterranean and the town was one of the most important commercial hubs between the colonies and the Roman Empire, thus the town could boast a size rivaling that of the city that had established it: Rome itself. Paradoxically, the town that distinguished itself for its impressive architecture, today shows no more signs of it: neither temples, arenas, nor theaters. Far less significant Roman towns like Nîmes or Arles are full of ancient sites. Narbonne today is a tranquil town in Occitania

Sorcières : chronique d'un massacre

In 1609, Henry IV sent Inquisition judge Pierre de Lancre to the French Basque Country to investigate witchcraft. In the trials, 80 people were sentenced to death at the stake. Between the 15th and 17th centuries, a total of between 40,000 and 60,000 people fell victim to such waves of persecution in Europe. How can this phenomenon be explained?

Bluebeard

Paris, France, during the First World War. While thousands of soldiers die every day on the battlefields, Henri Landru, a seemingly respectable furniture dealer, married and father of four children, relentlessly feeds his own sinister factory of death.

The French Revolution

A history of the French Revolution beginning from the decision of the king to convene the Etats-Generaux in 1789 in order to deal with France's debt problem. Part one spans the event until August 10, 1792 (when the King Louis XVI lost all authority and was imprisoned). Part two carries the story through the end of the terror in 1794.

Lions for Lambs

Three stories told simultaneously in ninety minutes of real time: a Republican Senator who's a presidential hopeful gives an hour-long interview to a skeptical television reporter, detailing a strategy for victory in Afghanistan; two special forces ambushed on an Afghani ridge await rescue as Taliban forces close in; a poli-sci professor at a California college invites a student to re-engage.

La Ligne de démarcation, une France coupée en deux (1940-1943)

Between June 1940 and March 1943, the 1,200 kilometer long demarcation line broke France in two. For almost three years she controlled the daily newspaper of 40 million French people. In the north the zone occupied by Hitler's soldiers, in the south the zone administered by Marshal Pétain's Vichy regime. This film lifts the veil in this theater on the shameful mistakes of the collaboration, but also on the most courageous and noble deeds. Archive images and film recordings at places where the border used to be crossed are alternated with interviews with the last witnesses of this time.

How Much I Love You

Beginning with a promotional reel encouraging farming investments in Algeria and ending with the secret 1950s nuclear tests that France conducted using Algerian prisoners, How Much I Love You appropriates archival footage produced by the French colonial powers in Algeria. Meddour’s approach is disarmingly simple and yet awe-inspiring—his caustic undoing of colonial discourse is underscored by a liberating release of humor.

The Village Detective: A Song Cycle

Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Iceland, July 9, 2016. The surprising discovery of a canister —containing four reels of The Village Detective (Деревенский детектив), a 1969 Soviet film—, caught in the nets of an Icelandic trawler, is the first step in a fascinating journey through the artistic life of film and stage actor Mikhail Ivanovich Zharov (1899-1981), icon and star of an entire era of Russian cinema.

Ein Traum von Revolution

When the revolution in Nicaragua won its victory nearly 40 years ago, the world began to dream. A young generation was taking the reins in a country of grand utopias. From West Germany alone, 15,000 “brigadists” travelled to help rebuild the war-torn country: liberals, greens, unionists, social democrats, leftists and church representatives harvested coffee and cotton, built schools, kindergartens and hospital wards. No movement has mobilised so many people. What became of the hopes and dreams of the revolutionaries and their supporters?

Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita

Cinecitta is today known as the center of the Italian film industry. But there is a dark past. The film city was solemnly inaugurated in 1937 by Mussolini. Here, propaganda films would be produced to strengthen the dictator's position.

Les Scandales de « La Religieuse »

Released in 1796 posthumously, The Nun, a novel that Diderot did not dream of publishing during his lifetime, as he knew it to be revolutionary, caused the same explosion in the 19th century France as in that of the 1960s, when Jacques Rivette decided to adapt it, with Anna Karina in the title role. “This film is banned and it will remain so!” said the General de Gaulle. Exploration of an indictment of incredible modernity which, through the tragedy of the young Suzanne, locked up in the convent against her will, denounces the inequity of a society denying women all moral, political and sexual freedom.

JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass

Thirty years after the release of his film JFK (1991), filmmaker Oliver Stone reviews recently declassified evidence related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which took place in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Land Without Bread

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

Grass

Marijuana is the most controversial drug of the 20th Century. Smoked by generations to little discernible ill effect, it continues to be reviled by many governments on Earth. In this Genie Award-winning documentary veteran Canadian director Ron Mann and narrator Woody Harrelson mix humour and historical footage together to recount how the United States has demonized a relatively harmless drug.

The Fog of War

Using archival footage, cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the 85-year-old Robert McNamara, The Fog of War depicts his life, from working as a WWII whiz-kid military officer, to being the Ford Motor Company's president, to managing the Vietnam War as defense secretary for presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

The Secret Order

Phil Comeau shines a spotlight on the Ordre de Jacques-Cartier, a powerful secret society that operated from 1926 to 1965, infiltrating every sector of Canadian society and forging the fate of French-language communities. Through never-before-heard testimony from former members of the Order, along with historically accurate dramatic reconstructions, this film paints a gripping portrait of the social and political struggles of Canadian francophone-minority communities.

What They Found

The story of two soldier-cameramen, Sgt Mike Lewis and Sgt Bill Lawrie, who witnessed the liberation of Belsen during the closing days of World War II.

Nuremberg: The Nazis Facing their Crimes

The documentary of the Nuremberg War Trials of 21 Nazi dignitaries held after World War II.

CHoosing at Twenty

Between 1954-1962, one hundred to three hundred young French people refused to participate in the Algerian war. These rebels, soldiers or conscripts were non-violent or anti-colonialists. Some took refuge in Switzerland where Swiss citizens came to their aid, while in France they were condemned as traitors to the country. In 1962, a few months after Independence, Villi Hermann went to a region devastated by war near the Algerian-Moroccan border, to help rebuild a school. In 2016 he returned to Algeria and reunited with his former students. He also met French refractories, now living in France or Switzerland.

Le Parti du cinéma

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Tokyo Phoenix

In 150 years, twice marked by total destruction —a terrible earthquake in 1923 and incendiary bombings in 1945— followed by a spectacular rebirth, Tokyo, the old city of Edo, has become the largest and most futuristic capital in the world in a transformation process fueled by the exceptional resilience of its inhabitants, and nourished by a unique phenomenon of cultural hybridization.

Una festa per la città - Venezia 1973

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Jamila, the Algerian

Djamila, a young Algerian woman living with her brother Hadi and her uncle Mustafa in the Casbah district of Algiers under the French occupation of Algeria, sees the full extent of injustice, tyranny and cruelty on his compatriots by French soldiers. Jamila's nationalist spirit will be strengthened when French forces invade her university to arrest her classmate Amina who commits suicide by ingesting poison. Shortly after the prominent Algerian guerrilla leader Youssef takes refuge with her, she realizes that her uncle Mustafa is part of this network of anti-colonial rebel fighters. Her uncle linked her to the National Liberation Front (FLN). A series of events illustrate Jamila's participation in resistance operations against the occupier before she was finally captured and tortured. Finally, despite the efforts of her French lawyer, Jamila is sentenced to death...

Le mystère Cléopâtre, la dernière reine d'Egypte

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Venus: Death of a Planet

Billions of years ago, Venus may have harbored life-giving habitats similar to those on the early Earth. Today, Earth's twin is a planet knocked upside down and turned inside out. Its burned-out surface is a global fossil of volcanic destruction, shrouded in a dense, toxic atmosphere. Scientists are now unveiling daring new strategies to search for clues from a time when the planet was alive.

The Gulag Archipelago: The Book That Changed Russian History

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.

An Unhealed Wound - The Harkis in the Algerian War

It's the unforgivable story of the two hundred thousands harkis, the Arabs who fought alongside the French in the bitter Algerian war, from 1954 to 1962. Why did they make that choice? Why were they slaughtered after Algeria's independence? Why were they abandonned by the French government? Some fifty to sixty thousands were saved and transferred in France, often at pitiful conditions. This is for the first time, the story of this tragedy, told in the brilliant style of the authors of "Apocalypse".

The Ming Dynasty’s Forgotten Capital

The once most magnificent imperial city in China is located in what is now Fengyang. The first city of the Ming dynasty was a model for all those who followed - including Beijing. After around 600 years underground, the ruined city is now being excavated again. Archaeologists, researchers, historians and workers are following in the footsteps of a bygone era and gaining new insights into the fate of a mysterious city every day.

Victory Through Air Power

Based on the book by Major Alexander de Seversky's about his theories of the practical uses of long range strategic bombing. Using a combination of animation humorously telling about the development of air warfare, the film shows de Seversky illustrating his ideas of how air power could win World War II for the Allies.

Merchants of Doubt

Spin doctors spread misinformation and confusion among American citizens to delay progress on such important issues as global climate change.

La Bataille d'Alger, l'empreinte

Cheikh Djemaï looks back on the genesis of Gillo Pontecorvo’s feature film, The Battle of Algiers (1965). Through archive images, extracts from the film and interviews with personalities, the filmmaker retraces the journey of a major work - from the events of the Algiers Casbah (1956-1957) to the presentation of the Lion of 'Or causing the anger of the French delegation in Venice - which left its mark as much in the history of cinema as in that of Algeria.

Apollo 13: Survival

Using original footage and interviews, this documentary tells the nail-biting story of Apollo 13 and the struggle to bring its astronauts safely home.

Dreyfus

In 1894, French officer Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly convicted for the treasonous acts of another man, Major Esterhazy. When investigations begin into the dubious evidence used in the trial, an institutional coverup begins, aided by fears of army disgrace and anti-Semitic paranoia against Dreyfus. But a determined group, headed by prominent author Émile Zola, leads a mounting public call to reopen the Dreyfus case.

The Atomic Cafe

A disturbing collection of 1940s and 1950s United States government-issued propaganda films designed to reassure Americans that the atomic bomb was not a threat to their safety.

Coluche, Le Luron : Morts de rire

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Avant la catastrophe - La Chute de la République de Weimar (1930-1933)

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In the Frozen Tomb of Mongolia

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Dark Side of the Moon

A French documentary or, one might say more accurately, a mockumentary, by director William Karel which originally aired on Arte in 2002 with the title Opération Lune. The basic premise for the film is the theory that the television footage from the Apollo 11 Moon landing was faked and actually recorded in a studio by the CIA with help from director Stanley Kubrick.

Nostradamus Decoded

Debunking the mythology surrounding the 16th century French prophet, Nostradamus.

Nos restaurants : Une grande histoire française

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Ady Steg, un parcours juif, une histoire française

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The Giza Pyramids: Reaching for the Stars

Explores the Pyramids of Giza as Egyptologists try to unravel the mysteries and decipher the clues behind these stone giants built over 4,500 years ago.