Under the Sun of Satan

Under the Sun of Satan 1987

6.02

Satan tempts Father Dossignan, who is trying to save the soul of a young girl who killed one of her lovers.

1987

Van Gogh

Van Gogh 1991

6.70

After leaving the asylum, Vincent van Gogh settles in the home of Doctor Gachet, where he keeps painting amidst the torments of his failing mental health. He begins an affair with his host’s daughter, however, she soon realizes that he doesn’t love her and that his heart beats only for art.

1991

The Nonentity

The Nonentity 1986

6.10

Each evening, four men – a doctor, a journalist, a professor and a merchant – meet up in a deserted bar to play cards. As they play, the bar’s owner, her downtrodden barman (nicknamed “le paltoquet”) and a strange woman in white watch from a distance. One night, the card game is disturbed when a police inspector suddenly appears and declares that a dead body has been found nearby. Certain that one of the four men is the murderer, the inspector starts his investigation. All the evidence suggests that the doctor did the deed, but we soon learn that nothing is quite what it seems…

1986

Freedomfighters

Freedomfighters 1996

6.30

At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the nun Maria is forced to flee her convent. She takes refuge in a brothel, until it is liberated by a woman's anarchist group. Maria joins the group and eventually goes to the front. The women's group faces the problems of fighting not only the nationalists, but also factions on the left seeking to impose a more traditional military structure.

1996

The Stranger

The Stranger 1991

7.51

A well-off Indian family is paid an unexpected, and rather unwanted, visit by a man claiming to be the woman's long lost uncle. The initial suspicion with which they greet the man slowly dissolves as he regales them with stories of his travels, tales that are at odds with their conventional middle class perspective on the world.

1991

Boris Godounov

Boris Godounov 1989

7.50

A possible impostor torments a newly crowned medieval czar who may have ordered the real successor's death.

1989

The Blue Note

The Blue Note 1991

5.50

A look at the last few days of in the life of composer Frédéric Chopin's professional life.

1991

The Cowboy and the Frenchman

The Cowboy and the Frenchman 1988

6.03

A grizzled, hard-of-hearing cowboy, Slim, and his two friends, Dusty and Pete, capture a mysterious, well-dressed Frenchman.

1988

Next Time the Fire

Next Time the Fire 1993

1

The study of semantics has convinced Amedio that things only have relative validity, and that everything is changeable. So it seems, because while on an Italian holiday with his family, he conceives the idea that his aging wife should assume the role of his mother, and his daughter, who has an infant son, should assume the role of his wife and lover. His real mother, an elderly invalid, dies just as this conceit begins to take form, and, inexplicably, the women placidly go along with this odd notion for a time, but eventually return to their former roles.

1993

Desire

Desire 1996

5.60

Désiré is a fine servant and butler who regularly seduces the ladies of the house where he works, but then he moves on. This time he is working for Odette, the mistress of the minister of Posts and he is living a new situation. He has fallen in love with with Odette.

1996

La Bohème

La Bohème 1988

6.00

The film tells the story of a love affair between a poor poet and an equally poor seamstress in 19th century Paris.

1988

The French as Seen by…

The French as Seen by… 1988

7.00

In 1988, Figaro magazine asked a few famous directors to direct a series of short movies to celebrate the 10 years of the revue. The movies have been released for the French revolution bicentenary. Includes: Werner Herzog's Les Gaulois, David Lynch's The Cowboy and the Frenchman, Andrzej Wajda's Proust contre la déchéance, Luigi Comencini's Pèlerinage à Agen, Jean-Luc Godard's Le dernier mot.

1988

The Branches of the Tree

The Branches of the Tree 1990

7.00

When a wealthy patriarch falls ill on his 70th birthday, three of his sons rush in from Calcutta, leading to a reunion filled with painful ironies and lingering disillusionment. As the family—including an addled fourth son who lives with the old man—watches and waits, the static occasion brings out simmering tensions in their family dynamics, from the father’s moral rectitude to the business ambition of two sons and the withdrawal of their siblings.

1990

Korczak

Korczak 1990

7.10

The story of Polish pedagogue Janusz Korczak and his dedication to protecting Jewish orphans during the war.

1990

Time

Time 1995

5.00

Beginning in South Africa under the apartheid regime, the film follows a young girl who flees the country after a violent confrontation with a local white landowner in which her father is killed. She settles in Abidjan, where, ten years later, she has become a university student. As part of her studies, she visits the Taureg tribe on the edge of the Sahara before at last returning to post-Apartheid South Africa.

1995

The Last Writer

The Last Writer 1993

5.00

Jacques asks a public writer to compose love letters for a beautiful stranger that he pretends he has just met.

1993

Seven Sundays

Seven Sundays 1995

7.00

Dodo, a French man living in Florida, has one goal in life: Get by without working. Difficult to implement without the help of some women. Betty is one of them, and a gypsy's bride, who suddenly disappears, changing Dodo's life.

1995

Travelling avant

Travelling avant 1987

4.20

Paris, October 1948. Nino, Gilles, Donald, Barbara and their friends are a new breed of spectators. They discover the cinema as art, they are moviegoers. They will try to realize their grand project: to found a film club. "My film first wants to be a testimony of young people who have lived for a passion. Cinema"

1987

La Boheme

La Boheme 1988

8.00

Giacomo Puccini's bittersweet opera of high-spirited bohemians and the doomed love between Rodolfo, the idealistic poet and Mimi, the consumptive flower-maker, is a beautifully balanced series of tableaux depicting the infectious joie de vivre of youth and the tragic waste of disease and separation. The legendary and incomparable partnership of Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti as the two lovers has been captured in this special live recording from stage of the San Francisco Opera. Brian Large has adapted Francesca Zambello's production for video, further illuminating the fascinating interaction of Puccini's characters. Gino Quilico sings Marcello, the colorful and moody painter, whose tempestuous relationship with the flirtatious Musetta (sung by Sandra Pacetti), comically mirrors the more profound love of Rodolfo and Mimi. Nicolai Ghiaurov sings Colline.

1988