Gaël Morel

De la cage aux roseaux

Alessandro Avellis

André Téchiné, Catherine Corsini

A journey into contemporary French cinema through a series of exclusive interviews with the leading figures of GLBT French cinematography: André Téchiné, Catherine Corsini, Gaël Morel, Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau and other old acquaintances of our film festival. This documentary offers an interesting insight into the official and non-official cinema from the point of view of gender identity. A look behind the scenes: discussing issues like censorship and self-censorship, women' cinema and misogyny, transvestism and homo-eroticism, cinema d'auteur and popular cinema (was the Nouvelle Vague homophobic?). From past to present, from Jacques Demy to François Ozon.

Famille tu me hais

Gaël Morel

Through the portraits of young adults excluded from their family home because of their homosexuality, Gaël Morel wants to show the disaster of the worst homophobia, that which is practiced in family. How do young people relearn to live, to respect themselves, and to look to the future after being destroyed by those who should have loved them?

Les Roseaux sauvages

André Téchiné

Gaël Morel, Élodie Bouchez

As the Algerian War draws to a close, a teenager with a girlfriend starts feeling homosexual urges for two of his classmates: a country boy, and a French-Algerian intellectual.

Catherine Deneuve, belle et bien là

Anne Andreu

Catherine Deneuve, Étienne Daho

Catherine Deneuve couldn’t care less about being a celebrity, but fame made her an icon long ago and she occupies a special place in our imagination. The star is not one to let others get too close, but when she gives you her confidence, she keeps her word. If Deneuve’s career covers a half-century of cinema, it also bears witness to the force of a generation that experienced the deepest transformation of mores. This portrait reflects her entirely. The story of a mystery and an adventure.

Loin

André Téchiné

Stéphane Rideau, Lubna Azabal

Serge is a long distance lorry driver between Morocco andEurope. In Tangier, he tries to reconcile with his former girlfriend, Sarah. She has refused to have anything to do with him since her mother’s death and intends to join her brother in Canada. Serge appeals to Sarah’s protector, a young Arab named Saïd, to allow him to meet up with Sarah, promising in return to smuggle Saïd into Europe...

La vie à rebours

Gaël Morel

Stéphane Rideau, Paul Morel

A sunny winter morning... Two brothers on a countryside path, go intown, as usual... That day, the younger brother has a meeting with his criminal friends. Stéphane, his older brother, isn’t aware of it. Fate will reunite them one last time... but too late. Stéphane, bearer of a terrible secret, is in for a life of suffering...

Catch the Wind

Gaël Morel

Sandrine Bonnaire, Mouna Fettou

Edith, a 45-year-old textile factory worker, sees her life turned upside down by the company’s downsizing measures. Estranged from her son and without any other ties, rather than go into unemployment, she decides to leave her life behind and follow her work at the factory which has been relocated in Morocco.

Premières neiges

Gaël Morel

Stéphane Rideau, Élodie Bouchez

On Christmas Eve, Léa and Juliette, a couple, want to rob a supermarket that Juliette knows is empty of surveillance on this festive evening. But, as much for each of them as for Eric, the vigil who is there after all, nothing will happen as planned. Besides, shortly before leaving him alone, the store manager gave Eric a gun, just in case.

Three Dancing Slaves

Gaël Morel

Nicolas Cazalé, Stéphane Rideau

Annecy is no tourist destination for three working-class Algerian brothers and their father, in the months after their mother has died. Marc is deeply troubled: he tries to stiff drug dealers and then plots revenge. Christophe is released from jail, lands a job, and must overcome various temptations in order to keep it. Olivier, nearing 18, may be falling in love with Hicham...

Les chemins de l'oued

Gaël Morel

Nicolas Cazalé, Amira Casar

Samy, a young Franco-Algerian, hits a policeman at a roadblock and must flee France. He takes refuge with his grandfather in Algeria. But he does not speak the local language, and everything is strange to him, even members of his family: Nadia his cousin, a pregnant widow; and Qu'Issam another cousin, who was expelled from France, and hates everything French. Samy's grandfather lives in the memory of a piece of land that no longer produces any wealth. Samy will never give the reason for his presence, but the chaotic climate of the country will revive the chaos that is in him.

Le plus bel âge...

Didier Haudepin

Élodie Bouchez, Melvil Poupaud

The grueling, emotionally torturous world of French preparatory schools provides the framework for this mystery. The deliberately rigorous courses are designed to prepare students to take the brutal examinations for entry into the elite Grand Ecoles, where a select few will gain the skills and education needed to insure a bright, prosperous future for themselves. The story centers on Delphine, a girl from the lower classes, and the upper class Claude. Both young women aspire to attend the Ecole Normale Superieure on the Rue d'Ulm. Delphine lives in humble public housing with her dull mother and two young brothers while Claude, who considers herself a Communist, lives in luxury with her own servant; she is sexually involved with fellow- student, Axel, who thinks himself a fascist.

À toute vitesse

Gaël Morel

Élodie Bouchez, Stéphane Rideau

A brief extract of four kids' lives somewhere in France. Quentin, who won a writers contest and now pays more attention to his career as an author than to his friends, beautiful Julie, his girl-friend, much more mature than she looks, falling in love with Quentin's very best friend Jimmy, who is kind of stuck in his unability of self-expression and grown up under bad social circumstances. And there is the shy boy Samir, exiled from Algeria, who lost his "brother" and only friend some time ago. Samir heavily falls in love with Quentin, but he can't handle it...

Our Paradise

Gaël Morel

Stéphane Rideau, Dimitri Durdaine

Vassili is an aged prostitute with killer instincts. He finds an unconscious young man in the Forest of Boulogne and takes him home. Now lovers and accomplices, the two men become a couple in prostitution and steal from their clients. And yet, menaces of retaliation leave the couple with no choice but to escape from Paris. The runaway begins...

New Wave

Gaël Morel

Béatrice Dalle, Valentin Ducommun

Eric, a lonely young college student, meets Romain, a student who has been dispelled. Far from the family farm, Eric discovers the new wave musical movement with the help of Romain, and decides to edit a video clip for a song by Romain.

Après lui

Gaël Morel

Catherine Deneuve, Guy Marchand

When Camille's son was killed in a car accident, the devastating loss proved too much for emotionally fragile mother to bear. Now desperately clinging to any reminder of the son she held so close to her heart, Camille becomes increasingly fixated on Frank - the young man who was not only her child's best friend, but the one who was responsible for the tragic accident that took his life as well. At first, Frank is receptive to Camille's advances. It's not long, however, before the pair's scandalous relationship prompts many of Camille's friends to distance themselves from the increasingly unstable woman. Later, as Camille's obsession with Frank turns menacing, the relationship between grief-stricken mother and her guilt-ridden lover begins to take on ominous undertones.

Zonzon

Laurent Bouhnik

Pascal Greggory, Gaël Morel

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.