François Delaive
2021
Free Men
Ismaël Ferroukhi
Tahar Rahim, Michael Lonsdale
In Paris during WWII, an Algerian immigrant is inspired to join the resistance by his unexpected friendship with a Jewish man. Based on not very known facts about the Muslim community in Paris during WWII, when the Paris Mosque and its dynamic leader played a pivotal role in supporting the resistance and rescuing Jews.
Free Men
La petite mort
François Ozon
François Delaive, Camille Japy
Family ties. Paul is an artist, his current project is to take photos of the faces of men during orgasm. He lives with Martial, his lover. His sister Camille, who's running the family business, takes Paul to the hospital to see their father, who is dying. Paul hasn't seen him in six years, and all his life has believed his father thinks he's ugly and perhaps not even his child. There's no deathbed reconciliation, but subsequent exchanges of Paul with Martial and with Camille bring opportunities for growth and change to this temperamental and self-pitying young man.
Little Death
Meeting Venus
István Szabó
Glenn Close, Niels Arestrup
Celebrated Swedish opera star Karin Anderson is slated to appear in an internationally-telecast production of Tannhauser. Ms. Anderson balks at the notion of working with obscure Hungarian conductor Zoltan Szanto. The much-anticipated production may never get off the ground, thanks to labor-management difficulties, intramural jealousies, and clashing egos. Amidst all this chaos, the mismatched Anderson and Szanto fall in love.
Meeting Venus
Elisa
Jean Becker
Vanessa Paradis, Gérard Depardieu
Marie has had a tough childhood ever since her mother Elisa committed suicide. She has spent most of her life in an orphanage and now makes a living as a small time criminal in Paris. Now she wants to unravel her past and find her father whom she blames for her mother's death.
Elisa
Scènes de lit
François Ozon
Valérie Druguet, François Delaive
Seven brief scenes, each with a couple, explore the surprises and the changes of heart that can occur during sexual encounters. Only one of the seven couples has been in bed together before; several are strangers or new acquaintances. A prostitute and her john, an older woman and a youth who follows her home, two women friends, a gay man with a straight man, a man with distinctive ideas about soap and water, a woman who wants the light left on, and a Spanish-speaking woman with a French-speaking man make for an array of possibilities and unanticipated consequences. The 7 bed scenes are titled: The Black Hole [Le trou noir]; Mr. Clean [Monsieur Propre]; Madame; Heads or Tails [Tête bêche]; The Ideal Man [L'homme idéal]; Love in the Dark [L'amour dans le noir]; and The Virgins [Les puceaux].
Bed Scenes
Κρυστάλλινες νύχτες
Tonia Marketaki
François Delaive, Michele Valley
In this supernatural-themed romance, a German woman in the between-wars period is being initiated into some kind of esoteric/psychic order and learns at that time that her ideal mate won't even be born for quite a few years. By 1936, she has moved to Greece with her Greek husband, and there she meets Alberto, a very young Greek man, a Jew, who is evidently the man she has been seeking. They are able to read each other's thoughts and do so in the midst of a sexual encounter. Despite the boy's attraction to her, he spurns her due to her age (she is forty). She commits suicide and is born almost immediately as someone able to protect her ideal mate from the Germans. Later, as a young woman, she again has a liaison with Alberto, who again spurns her due to their age differences. Flashbacks indicate that this situation has been part of their lives for many incarnations.
Crystal Nights
Rembrandt
Charles Matton
Klaus Maria Brandauer, Romane Bohringer
This French-German-Dutch biopic on the life of 17th century Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn is told in flashbacks from the point-of-view of the aged artist. Soon after establishing his career as a painter in Amsterdam, he marries the radiant Saskia. As he makes a name for himself, he can soon afford to buy a large house by teaching wealthy aristocrats how to paint. However, the couple's happiness is short-lived; Saskia dies soon after bearing their son, Titus. Crushed, van Rijn seeks comfort first in the arms of his maid Geertje and then with his second wife, Hendrickje, who gives birth to a daughter. In spite of his genius, van Rijn's determinedly eccentric behavior alienates the very members of the elite who were paying his bills. At one point, the artist's home and belongings, including many of his paintings, are seized and sold for humiliatingly low prices in a rigged auction.
Rembrandt
