Le Redoutable

A dramatisation of the workers' protests in June 1976 in Radom, seen from the perspective of the local Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party. [Produced in 1981, but not commercially released until 1996.]

Two children, Ignacio and Enrique, know love, the movies and fear in a religious school at the beginning of the 1960s. Father Manolo, director of the school and its professor of literature, is witness to and part of these discoveries. The three are followed through the next few decades, their reunion marking life and death.

For young Parisian boy Antoine Doinel, life is one difficult situation after another. Surrounded by inconsiderate adults, including his neglectful parents, Antoine spends his days with his best friend, Rene, trying to plan for a better life. When one of their schemes goes awry, Antoine ends up in trouble with the law, leading to even more conflicts with unsympathetic authority figures.

A small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he attempts to persuade a girl to run away to Italy with him.

Lukas, a young schizophrenic man, has to deal with a new town, a new relationship, and the paranoia in his head.

A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood.

A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.

An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.

Paul, a young idealist trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life, takes a job interviewing people for a marketing research firm. He moves in with aspiring pop singer Madeleine. Paul, however, is disillusioned by the growing commercialism in society, while Madeleine just wants to be successful. The story is told in a series of 15 unrelated vignettes.

Even though the protagonist of the Canadian Femme De L'Hotel is a female filmmaker, one would think twice before suggesting that this effort by Swiss-born director Lea Pool is autobiographical. Paule Baillargeon portrays a well-known director who returns to her home town of Montreal to film a high-budget musical drama. At her hotel, Paule has a brief but unsettling encounter with a suicidal elderly woman (Louise Marleau). This element of the plot is briefly forgotten as we get to know the actors in Paule's current project. Then she meets the old lady again, and with mounting incredulity Paule discovers that the actual events in the woman's life mirror the fictional events in the director's film.

An exiled filmmaker finally returns to his home country where former mysteries and afflictions of his early life come back to haunt him once more.