Villa Madjo

The day he decided to leave(pt)

My grandfather Tuiu decides for the second time to leave his house and start a life elsewhere, he lives with the street hardships, and the fact of leaving is linked to the depredation of that place.

The Trouble with Merle(en)

The director explores the birth origins of actress Merle Oberon, traveling to Tasmania and India in search of the truth, but her quest ultimately results in probably more questions than it answers.

Phantoms of the Sierra Madre(en)

A Danish writer travels to Mexico with the purpose of locating a mysterious Apache tribe that fervently seeks to remain in obscurity.

CHoosing at Twenty(fr)

Between 1954-1962, one hundred to three hundred young French people refused to participate in the Algerian war. These rebels, soldiers or conscripts were non-violent or anti-colonialists. Some took refuge in Switzerland where Swiss citizens came to their aid, while in France they were condemned as traitors to the country. In 1962, a few months after Independence, Villi Hermann went to a region devastated by war near the Algerian-Moroccan border, to help rebuild a school. In 2016 he returned to Algeria and reunited with his former students. He also met French refractories, now living in France or Switzerland.

Faces from Home(pt)

In an empty house, we see the memories of a home, from those who once lived and filled it with joy and love.

Box of Treasures(en)

In 1921 the Kwakiut'l people of Alert Bay, British Columbia, held their last secret potlatch. In 1980 at Alert Bay, the U'mista Cultural Centre (U'mista means "something of great value that has come back") opened its doors to receive and house the cultural treasures which were seized decades earlier and only then returned to the people. The center also took up activities such as recording stories told by elders so that some part of the past would always be alive and teaching children about their heritage in order to make them feel connected to their ancestors. This film documents the cultural significance of these events for today's Kwakiut'l people. It is an eloquent testimony to the persistence and complexity of Kwakiut'l society and to the struggle for redefining cultural identity for them.

Dear Albania(en)

Eliza Dushku takes on her homeland of Albania.

The Words Women Spoke One Day(fr)

1962, at the end of the Algerian War, Algerian independence activists are released from Rennes prison. For one night, filmmaker Yann Le Masson films them. They tell him their vision for the future of Algeria and the place women must occupy in the new society to be built. Fifty years later, with the soundtrack missing, Raphaël Pillosio sets out to find these women. Two deaf people set about lip-reading the women filmed by Yann Le Masson, revealing snatches of sentences, words cut short by the camera's shifts. An investigative film in which the few activists still alive discover their old testimonies and tell us their silent story. The reconstruction of the lost soundtrack will remain in suspense; no happy ending will come to absorb the absence, to cancel the ferocious operation of time. An essay film about cinema that depicts their disappearance, and forever keeps them alive.

A Landscaped Area Too Quiet for Me(es)

Memory prevents rest and a woman about to die takes advantage of cinema to tell her story (inseparable from that of Franco’s Spain) and to say goodbye. A terrace as a border and a song that crosses time. At home, nothing is always—and everything is still—in the present and defunct now. A home movie of ghosts, a generous gesture of intimacy and solidarity that not witnesses two people at the end of their long lives, but also reveals the weight of history and of the 20th century, which is always present today.

The Last of the Babingas(fr)

In the equatorial forest of Congo Brazzaville and the Central African Republic pygmies live. Over-exploitation and waste of resources have had a significant impact on the lives of Pygmies. The story is based on Mangala an old and wise voice of these disappearing people.

Elle va crier(fr)

Audrey, a woman in her mid-fifties, has never been able to make peace with her tumultuous family history. A clumsy mother, an emotionally distant father and sexual assaults that have gone unreported. She now decides to confront her demons. Supported by her son, the director of the documentary, she revisits a striking scene from her past: the moment when she told her parents that her grandfather had raped her. Together, through a year-long production process, they transform this awkward exchange into a moment of communion, thanks to actors, a set and Audrey's desire to do herself justice.

Punk is not vraiment dead ?!(fr)

The Smuggler and Her Charges(fr)

A captivating and personal detective story that uncovers the truth behind the childhood of Michaël Prazan's father, who escaped from Nazi-occupied France in 1942 thanks to the efforts of a female smuggler with mysterious motivations.

African Glory(fr)

Povo da Floresta(pt)

One Year in Germany(en)

Four young people from Tanzania and Cameroon complete a year of weltwärts voluntary service in Germany. For each of them, it is their first visit in Europe. The film follows the volunteers throughout their year of service, it expresses different expectations, enthusiasm, goals and challenges. The volunteers describe subjectively their personal experiences as well as their view of Germany. The documentary is a thoughtful and exciting vision of the exchange program seen by four young people.

The Zerda or the Songs of Forgetting(fr)

“La Zerda and the songs of oblivion” (1982) is one of only two films made by the Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, with “La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua” (1977). Powerful poetic essay based on archives, in which Assia Djebar – in collaboration with the poet Malek Alloula and the composer Ahmed Essyad – deconstructs the French colonial propaganda of the Pathé-Gaumont newsreels from 1912 to 1942, to reveal the signs of revolt among the subjugated North African population. Through the reassembly of these propaganda images, Djebar recovers the history of the Zerda ceremonies, suggesting that the power and mysticism of this tradition were obliterated and erased by the predatory voyeurism of the colonial gaze. This very gaze is thus subverted and a hidden tradition of resistance and struggle is revealed, against any exoticizing and orientalist temptation.

A Story-A Story(en)

Ananse the Spider Man climbs up to the sky to buy stories from the Sky God in this folktale from Africa.

Nos restaurants : Une grande histoire française(fr)

Qatar, une dynastie à la conquête du monde(fr)

For three decades now, Qatar, this small desert kingdom, has not stopped being talked about; because of its financial power and the secrecy that surrounds it, the royal family that runs it fascinates as much as it frightens.