French films about secret missions

Cast out of his insular community, a damaged and down on his luck man teeters between a life of crime and the path to redemption.

A veteran chef faces off against his restaurant group's new CEO, who wants to the establishment to lose a star from its rating in order to bring in a younger chef who specializes in molecular gastronomy.

Paris, France, December 1897. The young playwright Edmond Rostand feels like a failure. Inspiration has abandoned him. Married and father of two children, desperate and penniless, he persuades the great actor Constant Coquelin to perform the main role in his new play. But there is a problem: Coquelin wants to premiere it at Christmas and Edmond has not written a single word.

The worst teachers of France landed in England for an ultra-secret mission. With Boulard, the King of the Dunces, they are parachuted in the best school of the country, and they will apply their famous methods on the future of the nation.

Hua, a young woman from Beijing, is a recent arrival in Paris. Exiled in an unknown city, she wanders between her tiny apartment and the university, drifting between former lovers and recent French acquaintances. She meets Matthieu, a young worker who falls madly in love with her. Possessed by an insatiable desire for her body, he treats Hua like a dog. An intense affair begins, marked by Matthieu’s passionate embraces and harsh verbal abuse. When Hua determines to leave her lover, she discovers the strength of her addiction, and the vital role he has come to play in her life as a woman.

Three people who have lost everything, a soldier tired of fighting, a young woman and a little girl, pose as a family to escape the civil war in Sri Lanka. They emigrate to France and settle in a chaotic neighborhood on the outskirts of Paris, where apparently the law no longer exists; but they, who barely know each other, struggle to survive there, even when the ghosts of war begin to haunt them again.

Philippe Mars wants to please everyone. He wants to be a good father, a friendly ex-husband, a helpful colleague and an understanding brother. Unfortunately, his little world goes out of its planned orbit. His son becomes a hardcore vegetarian, his daughter a compulsive swot, whilst his sister exhibits giant paintings of their naked parents. At the office he must face the rampages of his mentally unstable colleague Jerôme who one night turns up at his door with a young woman in tow who has just been released from a clinic.

An American writer moves to Paris to be closer to his daughter and finds himself falling immediately on hard times.

Marcel Marx, a former bohemian and struggling author, has given up his literary ambitions and relocated to the port city Le Havre. He leads a simple life based around his wife Arletty, his favourite bar and his not too profitable profession as a shoeshiner. As Arletty suddenly becomes seriously ill, Marcel's path crosses with an underage illegal immigrant from Africa, who needs Marcel's help to hide from the police.

Antoine is a lawyer living in New York. On his way back to France for the final round of a job interview, Antoine finds himself sitting right next to his ex-girlfriend Julie. With a seven-hour flight ahead of them, they are going to have to speak to each other.

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...

The story of the final seven months in the life of German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.

Gaston is a new guy at the Peticoin start-up. With his delusional inventions, he will change the lives of his colleagues. Cat, seagull, cow, and gaffophone will be at the center of the mishaps of this genius laidback handyman who wants only to do good, but has the gift of annoying Prunelle, his boss. Can those Gaston's gaffes galore prevent the buy-out of the Peticoin by Mr. de Mesmaeker?

March 1992, in a small town in the suburbs of Paris. During an alcohol fueled party, teenagers discover a body hidden in the bushes of a forest. A body that seems lifeless. Two weeks earlier. Simon, a 16 year-old teenager, has not shown up for class. Blood stains are found in a class-room. Run-away, kidnap, suicide, murder? A few days later, Laetitia, a student from the same class goes missing without her parents knowing where she has gone. A young girl with no dark background or connection to Simon. The next day, Jean-Baptiste, a third student, also disappears. Rumors start to spread. The psychosis begins...

1809, France. Captain Neuville is called to the front, leaving his future bride heartbroken. Her sister decides to write letters on his behalf to cheer her up.

The story revolves around Alain, a busy businessman who is always in a rush. In his life, there is no room for spare time or family. But one day, he suffers a stroke, which makes him lose his grasp of language and use one word in place of another.

Pensioners Nina and Madeleine have hidden their deep and passionate love for many decades. From everybody’s point of view, including Madeleine’s family, they are simply two neighbors living on the top floor of their building. They come and go between their two apartments, sharing the tender delights of everyday life together. Until the day their relationship is turned upside down by an unexpected event leading Madeleine’s daughter to slowly unveil the truth about them.

Laura is still waiting for Prince Charming at the age of 24. So when Sandro appears at a party, exactly like her Prince would in her dreams, she thinks she's found the right one. But then again, when she meets Maxime, Laura starts to wonder if some Princes could be more charming than others? Of course Sandro has problems of his own : his father, Pierre, just bumped into Madam Irma at his father's funeral and this reminded him of the date of his own death which Madame Irma had predicted ages ago. Now Pierre is unable to make any plans, not with his new partner Eleonore, nor with Sandro. And Maxime has his own problems, and so does Eleonore, Marianne, Jacqueline and many others. But don't worry, in the end, they'll all live happily ever after.

3 childhood friends who have never left their hometown in the suburb try to get into porn as a way earning easy money.

DNA revolves around a woman with close ties to a beloved Algerian grandfather who protected her from a toxic home life as a child. When he dies, it triggers a deep identity crisis as tensions between her extended family members escalate revealing new depths of resentment and bitterness.

From the moment they meet - and against their will - Helene and Joachim begin a lovers' dance they are powerless to stop.

Dead Shadows tells the terrifying story about a young man, Chris, whose parents were brutally killed 11 years ago, on the same day that the comet of Haley could be seen from earth. Tonight, a new comet is going to appear and everyone in Chris’s building are getting ready for a big apocalypse party to celebrate the event. As the night falls, Chris starts to discover that people are acting strange and it seems to somehow be connected to the comet. People are becoming disoriented and violent and it doesn’t take long before they start mutating into something from beyond this world.

An attorney stumbles upon a suitcase filled with cocaine.

French border cop José Fernandez has just one last extradition to do before his long-awaited promotion to the crime bureau. But his detainee Akim, victim of a judiciary glitch, is outraged to find himself saddled with the identity of a potential terrorist and put on a flight back to Kabul, where he has never even set foot before! What starts as a routine trip for Fernandez and his skirt-chasing partner Guy goes haywire when their plane is grounded in Malta, forcing them to bunk up with Akim, who will stop at nothing to avoid extradition!

Stockholm Syndrome. Feelings arise between a young kidnapper and his victim, a woman surgeon. He seeks revenge for a medical accident that prevents him from living peacefully and decides to kidnapp the woman he holds responsible. When the latter manage to escape, she can't stop to meet her kidnapper again, for reasons of love and of vengeance.

Anne leaves Estonia to come to Paris as a caretaker for Frida, an elderly Estonian lady who emigrated to France long ago. Anne soon realizes that she is not wanted. All Frida wants from life is the attention of Stéphane, her younger former lover. Stéphane, however, is desperate for Anne to stay and look after Frida, even against the old lady's will. In this conflict of strangers, Anne will find her own way…

A middle-aged writer is looking for a quiet retreat; a slightly younger female estate agent gives him details of a house a close to Venice.

Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France, capturing the oldest known pictorial creations of humankind in their astonishing natural setting.

Orson Welles' unfinished masterpiece, restored and assembled based on Welles' own notes. During the last 15 years of his life, Welles, who died in 1985, worked obsessively on the film, which chronicles a temperamental film director—much like him—who is battling with the Hollywood establishment to finish an iconoclastic work.

Ducoboo is a very inventive dunce and joker, he is very resourceful at finding new ways to copy from his neighbor, to cheat or to defy the teacher's authority.

When Nénette (Josiane Balasko) discovers the identity of her father in a letter, she quickly goes off in search of him. But instead of finding her father, she is met by her half-brother, Paul (Michel Blanc). Paul, a bitter man who gave up his dream to take over his father’s pharmacy business, is less than thrilled at the arrival of his ‘embarrassing’ half-sister. After refusing to take her in, he soon gets a taste of his own medicine. Under the influence of a potent drug, for one day Paul is generous, happy and sensitive. The next morning, however, once the drug has worn off, his nasty side comes back...

In the midst of a divorce, Miriam Besson decides to ask for exclusive custody of her son, in order to protect him from a father that she is accusing of violence. The judge-in-charge of the file grants a shared custody to the father whom it considers abused. Taken as a hostage between his parents, Julien Besson will do everything to prevent the worst from happening.

Drama about a father and son who set out to find their missing daughter/sister with the help of an American headhunter.

An Iranian family survives the shah and the ayatollah and moves to France. This story follows the family through it all. Despite the politics, revolution, prison, beatings, assassinations and suicides this is a comedy.

Paulette Van Der Beck and her husband have been running the housekeeping school of Bitche in Alsace for many years. Their mission is to train teenage girls to become the perfect housewives at a time when women were expected to be subservient to their husband. After the sudden death of her husband, Paulette discovers that the school is on the verge of bankruptcy and has to take her responsibilities. But while preparations are underway for the best housekeeping competition TV show, she and her lively students start questioning their beliefs as the nation-wide protests of May 1968 transform society around them. Reunited with her first love, André, and with the help of her eccentric stepsister Gilberte and strict nun Marie-Therese, Paulette joins forces with the schoolgirls to overcome their suppressed status and become liberated women.

France, around 1900. Coming from the vibrancy of Paris, pert Célestine is procured as a chambermaid in Normandy. In the Lanlaire's villa she encounters the lecherous man of the house and his asexual, tyrannical and jealous wife. Célestine is determined to avoid the fate suffered by the cook Marianne who has already secretly killed one child born out of wedlock and now despairingly realises she is pregnant again. The lively maid is intrigued by what the mysterious manservant Joseph is up to: he distributes anti-Semitic leaflets and suggests that she could work for him as a prostitute in Cherbourg…

Maya is living the ultimate fashionistas dream: she is working as a stylist for one of the French trend setters, in the capital of haute-couture: Paris. One of the IT girls of fashion, shes following her dreams until one night, when her life takes a sudden turn: shes being deported back to Morocco, after being stopped for over speeding, because her Visa expired some time ago. So in no more than 24 hours, shes deported back to her family and original country. The strong cultural shock and the judgmental differences are pushing the woman to obtain back her place in the city of dreams and her dreams, no matter the costs. But that doesn't mean she will have to return alone, as she finds other things also among her way back to the city.

Newly engaged, Thomas meets his future father-in-law Gilbert, who has been married for 30 years to Suzanne. Disillusioned Gilbert is convinced that his marriage has meant he's missed out on life. He persuades Thomas not to marry his daughter Lola and encourages him to drop everything else in his life as well. The two men then throw themselves into a new brats' life full of adventure, convinced that freedom is elsewhere. But at what cost do we rediscover our adolescent dreams?

When police is about to apprehend a famous gang of bank robbers, an elite sniper opens fire from a roof, thus facilitating the flee of his accomplices. However, one of them is seriously injured, which compromises the plans of the thieves.

François Gautier is stingy! Saving puts the joy, it causes pay sweats. His life is set for the sole purpose of never spend anything. A life that will switch in one day: he falls in love and discovers he has a daughter he did not know existed. Forced to lie in order to hide his terrible default, this will be the beginning for François problems. Because lie can sometimes be expensive. Very expensive…

A man tries that his wife fall in love with him again, after to wake up in an alternate reality where she never knew him.

Told through performances, TV interviews, home movies, family photographs, private letters and unpublished memoirs, the film reveals the essence of an extraordinary woman who rose from humble beginnings in New York City to become a glamorous international superstar and one of the greatest artists of all time.

A young woman makes a surprising discovery about the husband of her late best friend.

Tony is admitted to a rehabilitation center after a serious ski accident. Dependent on the medical staff and pain relievers, she takes time to look back on a turbulent relationship that she experienced with Georgio.

A union pensioner and his wife are robbed, but find that merely getting the assailants brought to justice is not enough for their consciences.

A hitman named Tul is shot in the head during an assignment. When he wakes up from a two month coma Tul discovers that he literally sees everything upside down.

Once upon a time... consumer goods were built to last. Then, in the 1920’s, a group of businessmen realized that the longer their product lasted, the less money they made, thus Planned Obsolescence was born, and manufacturers have been engineering products to fail ever since. Combining investigative research and rare archive footage with analysis by those working on ways to save both the economy and the environment, this documentary charts the creation of ‘engineering to fail’, its rise to prominence and its recent fall from grace.

Eight short films explore the subject of male infidelity. Serial cheaters, Fred and Greg, spend a night on the town doing what they do best, and with absolutely no regrets. The duo play various characters in assorted extracurricular situations, ranging from sexist to the darker sides of carnal desires.

On holiday in the south of France, chic Parisian sophisticate Violette meets life-loving IT geek Jean-René. Against all odds, there’s a real chemistry between them and at the end of the summer, Jean-René wastes no time in joining his beloved in Paris. But there’s trouble in paradise, and a third party swiftly appears to shatter the couple’s idyll: Lolo, Violette’s ultra-possessive 19-year-old son, who is determined to get rid of his mother’s lover, whatever it takes…

A wide-ranging, energetic period piece tracing the rise of the Protestant Henry of Navarre as he goes from battlefield warrior to France's beloved King Henri IV. Director Jo Baier's epic is a classically entertaining adventure, albeit one with more than a little bloodshed and frequent bawdy sexual interludes. In late 16th-century France, Catholics and Protestant Huguenots were at war. Seemingly seeking peace, the French dowager queen, Catherine de Medici summons Henry to her court to have him marry her daughter, uniting the two warring factions. However, the Catholics slaughter the Protestant wedding guests in what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and Henry-now married-must use all his guile to both stay alive and maneuver for the throne. [Written by Palm Springs International Film Festival]