Four tales, each centered on a woman, journey inward to explore the enigmatic reality of their lives, connecting through a single narrative thread.
Social & External
The people behind it
Fanny Ardant
Patricia
Chiara Caselli
Mistress
Irène Jacob
The Girl
John Malkovich
The Director
Sophie Marceau
Vincent Perez
Niccolo
Jean Reno
Carlo
Kim Rossi Stuart
Silvano
Inés Sastre
Carmen
Peter Weller
Husband
Polish immigrant Karol Karol finds himself out of a marriage, a job and a country when his French wife, Dominique, divorces him after six months due to his impotence. Forced to leave France after losing the business they jointly owned, Karol enlists fellow Polish expatriate Mikołaj to smuggle him back to their homeland.
Chris, a former tennis pro, takes a job as an instructor and befriends his wealthy young student, Tom. After being introduced to his family, Chris is soon engaged to Tom's sister, Chloe. Despite the professional and financial advantages that this relationship affords him, Chris becomes obsessed with Tom's fiancee, American actress Nola.
A filmmaker is invited to an actor's house, who is keenly interested in his story. For the story to be told, the characters need to speak for themselves so they began speaking and they said
Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.
Emmi Kurowski, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. Her husband died years ago, and her grown children offer little companionship. One night she goes to a bar frequented by Arab immigrants and strikes up a friendship with middle-aged mechanic Ali. Their relationship soon develops into something more, and Emmi's family and neighbors criticize their spontaneous marriage. Soon Emmi and Ali are forced to confront their own insecurities about their future.
In the Salinas Valley in and around World War I, Cal Trask feels he must compete against overwhelming odds with his brother for the love of their father. Cal is frustrated at every turn, from his reaction to the war, how to get ahead in business and in life, and how to relate to his estranged mother.
Story of a young woman who marries a fascinating widower only to find out that she must live in the shadow of his former wife, Rebecca, who died mysteriously several years earlier. The young wife must come to grips with the terrible secret of her handsome, cold husband, Max De Winter. She must also deal with the jealous, obsessed Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, who will not accept her as the mistress of the house.
A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.
A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.
Strong and independent Eliza works as the Polish teacher in a village school and begins an affair with local delinquent Stach. They have a child out of wedlock. When Stach is sent on forced labourer in Germany, Eliza and her child set off on an epic journey to be reunited with her lover.
Matt, a young glaciologist, soars across the vast, silent, icebound immensities of the South Pole as he recalls his love affair with Lisa. They meet at a mobbed rock concert in a vast music hall - London's Brixton Academy. They are in bed at night's end. Together, over a period of several months, they pursue a mutual sexual passion whose inevitable stages unfold in counterpoint to nine live-concert songs.
Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realises that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.
At a tiny Parisian café, the adorable yet painfully shy Amélie accidentally discovers a gift for helping others. Soon Amelie is spending her days as a matchmaker, guardian angel, and all-around do-gooder. But when she bumps into a handsome stranger, will she find the courage to become the star of her very own love story?
Old lovers reunite, a friendship is betrayed, a pet is killed, a runaway discovered, and a co-worker comes back from the dead in these five interconnected tales about suffering from kindness. Shot over five-years worth of weekends featuring a massive cast and crew, this ambitious, feature-length, no-budget indie shows a side of Maine not seen anywhere else (no lobstermen here, sorry) and finds bleak comedy in a backwater state being dragged into a diverse and inclusive 21st century.
Tom is an 18-year-old deaf boy who lives with his overprotective brother, Eliel. His life changes when he meets the dancer Anthony. As the two grow closer and Tom's feelings for Anthony awaken, a new perspective emerges in his life, leading him to follow the path he always wanted: his own.
A family's palatial lifestyle and estate are stolen from them in an attempt to frame them for a crime they did not commit.
Summer feels endless as Marthe travels through the Ardennes with her friends in the late nineties. While they laugh, drink and drift through long days, her thoughts stay with her sick sister at home. The further they drive, the heavier the silence grows.
Barbara and Oliver Rose live happily as a married couple. When Barbara starts to wonder what life would be like without Oliver and likes what she sees, the two begin a campaign to force each other to leave their house, with their divorce lawyer D'Amato caught in the middle.
Career criminal Johnny Clay recruits a sharpshooter, a crooked police officer, a bartender and a betting teller named George, among others, for one last job before he goes straight and gets married. But when George tells his restless wife about the scheme to steal millions from the racetrack where he works, she hatches a plot of her own.
In Paris, the City of Love, five very different couples cross paths while dealing with break-ups, exes and new love interests. None of them have anything in common. But everyone is someone else’s ex – and love works in mysterious ways…
Captives of the very relationships that define and sustain them, nine women resiliently meet the travails and disappointments of life.
A car accident and shifting affections test the bond between a married couple.
Sidonie Perceval, an established French writer, is mourning her deceased husband. Invited to Japan for the reedition of her first book, she is welcomed by her local editor who takes her to Kyoto, the city of shrines and temples. As they travel together through the Japanese spring blossoms, she slowly opens up to him. But the ghost of her husband follows Sidonie: she will have to finally let go of the past to let herself love again.
A failed novelist's inability to pay the bills strains relations with his wife and leads him to work at an escort service, where he becomes entwined with a wealthy woman whose husband is a successful writer.
When a romance between a widow and a notorious libertine takes an unexpected turn, Mademoiselle de Joncquières becomes instrumental to one lover’s plans for revenge.
Suzanne Simonin describes her life of suffering in letters. As a young woman she is sent to a convent against her will. Since her parents cannot afford the dowry required for a marriage befitting her rank they decide she must instead become a nun. Although a kind and understanding Mother Superior helps her to learn the convent’s daily routine, Suzanne’s desire for freedom remains unabated. When the Mother Superior dies, Suzanne finds herself faced with reprisals, humiliation and harassment at the hands of the new Abbess and the other Sisters. For many years, Suzanne is subjected to bigotry and religious fanaticism. (Berlinale.de)
Clare and Aidan make a pact to break up before college — no regrets, no broken hearts. But will one epic goodbye date offer them a last chance at love?
An extraordinary look at the lives of a middle-aged couple in the midst of the wife's breast cancer diagnosis.
In the reign of emperor Tiberius, Gallilean prophet John the Baptist preaches against King Herod and Queen Herodias. The latter wants John dead, but Herod fears to harm him due to a prophecy. Enter beautiful Princess Salome, Herod's long-absent stepdaughter. Herodias sees the king's dawning lust for Salome as her means of bending him to her will. But Salome and her lover Claudius are–contrary to Scripture–nearing conversion to the new religion.
Due to a genetic disorder, handsome librarian Henry DeTamble involuntarily zips through time, appearing at various moments in the life of his true love, the beautiful artist Clare Abshire.
Photographer Robert Kincaid wanders into the life of housewife Francesca Johnson for four days in the 1960s.
Sarah and David are single strangers who meet at a mutual friend’s wedding and soon, through a surprising twist of fate, find themselves on a funny, fantastical, sweeping adventure together where they get to re-live important moments from their respective pasts, illuminating how they got to where they are in the present... and possibly getting a chance to alter their futures.
Paul travels the world to capture the perfect photographic moment. Amid the colour and chaos of a crowded Filipino market, destiny intervenes when Paul’s first love, Anna appears in his lens. The travellers spend the day exploring the beauty of a 16th century town and whilst passions reignite, their principles on relationships, religion and morality clash. The night they spend together will change everything.
Jean, a married 40-year-old filmmaker, and his young working class lover, Catherine, engage in a circular series of spectacular blow-ups and tentative reunions, their mutual desire a fire that burns them again and again.
Bridger is a young outsider who's always wanted more. He and his mother flee an abusive home, eventually finding a small town in the middle of nowhere. Once there, Bridger finds true acceptance with another misfit.
A road trip through Louisiana transforms three strangers who were originally brought together by their respective feelings of loneliness.
True tale of the tumultuous love affair between two French literary icons of the 19th Century, novelist George Sand and poet Alfred de Musset. But their affair falls apart during an excursion to Venice, Italy where Musset is distracted by drugs and Sand by a handsome doctor.
A fiery Spanish woman is about to marry a kind British man when she meets a Brazilian actor who ignites in her a flame of lust she can't ignore.
Seven lonely lives in Paris: a middle-aged estate agent who believes a colleague is sending messages in video tapes she loans him; his co-worker whose Bible is close at hand in times of stress; her late-night charge, an angry, nasty bedridden old man; his son, a patient bartender; the bartender's best patron, an ex-soldier who's lost his moorings while his fiancée looks for a large flat for them; and, the estate agent's much younger sister, who answers personals and waits in cafés with a red flower pinned on her jacket. Will any connect? Can open hearts trump fears?
Viennese doctor Josef Bruer meets with philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to help him deal with his despair.
