Claire's Knee

Un amor(es)

Upon settling in the countryside village of La Escapa, Nat accepts a disturbing sexual proposal by neighbour Andreas, paving the way for a self-consuming passion.

Phantasia(xx)

X-ray images were invented in 1895, the same year in which the Lumière brothers presented their respective invention in what today is considered to be the first cinema screening. Thus, both cinema and radiography fall within the scopic regime inaugurated by modernity. The use of X-rays on two sculptures from the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum generates images that reveal certain elements of them that would otherwise be invisible to our eyes. These images, despite being generally created for technical or scientific purposes, seem to produce a certain form of 'photogénie': they lend the radiographed objects a new appearance that lies somewhere between the material and the ethereal, endowing them with a vaporous and spectral quality. It is not by chance that physics and phantasmagoria share the term 'spectrum' in their vocabulary.

36 Fillette(fr)

Lili, a pouty and voluptuous 14-year-old, is caravan camping with her family in Biarritz. She's self-aware and holds her own in a café conversation with a concert pianist she meets, but she has a wild streak and she's testing her powers over men, finding that she doesn't always control her moods or actions, and she's impatient with being a virgin. She sets off with her brother to a disco, latching onto an aging playboy who is himself hot and cold to her. She is ambivalent about losing her virginity that night, willing the next, and determined by the third.

Eyes Wide Shut(en)

After Dr. Bill Harford's wife, Alice, admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met, Bill becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter. He discovers an underground sexual group and attends one of their meetings -- and quickly discovers that he is in over his head.

Wet Woman in the Wind(ja)

Dissipated Tokyo playwright, Kosuke has retreated to the countryside after deciding that he's done with women, but the indefatigable cat-in-heat Shiori has other ideas, clinging to Kosuke like his shadow.

9 Songs(en)

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.

All Ladies Do It(it)

After five years of marriage, Diana discovers the joys of adultery, claiming that she can save her failing relationship through betrayal.

Discreet(en)

Monique, a high class escort, has always been able to give her clients exactly what they want, while clean cut Thomas has always been exactly what everyone has expected. But tonight Thomas' curiosity is going to get the better of him while demanding of Monique the one thing she's reluctant to offer. Honesty, costs more.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande(en)

Nancy Stokes, a retired schoolteacher, is pretty sure she has never had good sex. Now that her husband has died, she is determined to take a tour of sexual vistas that until now she has only imagined. She even has a plan; it involves an anonymous hotel room, and a sex worker who calls himself Leo Grande.

Knee(ro)

Somebody's Daughter(en)

Because of the internet's accessibility, anonymity, and affordability, pornography addictions have risen to epidemic levels, destroying intimacy, marriages and families, while distorting our definition of sex and sexuality.

Beau Pere(fr)

Rémi is a man trapped in a deteriorating marriage. When his wife is unexpectedly killed in a car accident, Rémi is left with his stepdaughter, Marion, who chooses to stay with him rather than live with her birth father. After the initial shock passes, Rémi is caught off-guard when Marion begins expressing her attraction to him. Initially repulsed, Marion's mature beauty wears him down as he finally caves to her seductions.

Private Lessons(en)

Phillip Filmore is a naive, 15-year-old, preoccupied with sex, who develops a crush on Nicole Mallow, the new 30-something, French housekeeper and sitter to look after him when Phillip's father is out of town for the summer on a "business" trip. But Mr. Filmore's unscrupulous chauffeur, Lester Lewis, takes advantage of Phillip's crush on Nicole to hire her to seduce the youth, then draws her into a plot to fake her own death in a blackmail scheme aimed to drain Phillip's trust fund.

I Want Your Sex(en)

When fresh-faced Elliot lands an exciting job for renowned artist, icon and provocateur Erika Tracy, his fantasies come true as Erika taps him to become her sexual muse. But Elliot soon finds himself out of his depth as Erika takes him on a journey more profound than he ever could have imagined, into a world of sex, obsession, power, betrayal and murder.

Seduction: The Cruel Woman(de)

Wanda is a dominatrix who runs a gallery in a building on the Hamburg waterfront, where audiences pay for the privilege of watching her humiliate her slaves. She is a business woman who smashes sexual stereotypes and social taboos with icy self-possession and an enigmatic smile. As artist she specializes in the staging of elaborate BDSM fantasies and her affairs transgress the usual boundaries of personal and professional life. Along the way she leaves her German lesbian lover, a shoe fetishist, for an American "trainee," and does more than step on the toes of the male performer who has broken the rules of the master-slave relationship by falling in love with her.

Falling Prey(fr)

Thomas can neither accept or change what he is. His perversion is a burden and his abstinence, a struggle. At his daughter’s birthday party, he happens to meet her newest friend, Mathilde. What was supposed to be a random event becomes a true battle for him.

Le Syndrome des cœurs brisés – Takotsubo(fr)

The Yearning(en)

Two lonely people notice each other. A yearning so big it might destroy me. It has always been there and always will be. Walk, walk up that hill. Climb, climb up that train.

Them(xx)

A grieving husband struggles to come to terms with his wife's passing. Following a night-time visit to her grave, he picks up a transgender sex worker.

Retrógrado(es)

My Night at Maud's(fr)

The Catholic Jean-Louis runs into an old friend, the Marxist Vidal, in Clermont-Ferrand around Christmas. Vidal introduces Jean-Louis to the modestly libertine, recently divorced Maud and the three engage in conversation on religion, atheism, love, morality and Blaise Pascal's life and writings on philosophy, faith and mathematics. Jean-Louis ends up spending a night at Maud's. Jean-Louis' Catholic views on marriage, fidelity and obligation make his situation a dilemma, as he has already, at the very beginning of the film, proclaimed his love for a young woman whom, however, he has never yet spoken to.

The Bakery Girl of Monceau(fr)

Early new wave effort from Rohmer, which was the first of his six moral tales. It concerns a young man who approaches a girl in the street, but after several days without seeing her again, he becomes involved with the girl in the local bakery. Eventually, he has to choose between them when he arranges dates with them on the same day.

Love in the Afternoon(fr)

The last of Rohmer's Six Moral Tales. Frederic leads a bourgeois life; he is a partner in a small Paris office and is happily married to Helene, a teacher expecting her second child. In the afternoons, Frederic daydreams about other women, but has no intention of taking any action. One day, Chloe, who had been a mistress of an old friend, begins dropping by his office. They meet as friends, irregularly in the afternoons, till eventually Chloe decides to seduce Frederic, causing him a moral dilemma.

Offside(fa)

During the 2006 World Cup qualifying match between Iran and Bahrain, numerous young women are caught and rounded up for dressing as men so they could gain access to the game. Guarded by several soldiers in a holding pen, the women attempt to keep updated on the score.

A Good Marriage(fr)

Sabine vows to give up married lovers, and is determined to find a good husband. Her best friend Clarisse introduces her to her cousin Edmond, a busy lawyer from Paris. Sabine pursues Edmond, with the encouragement of Clarisse, but Edmond does not seem very interested.

The Horseman on the Roof(fr)

In a time of war and disease, a young officer gallantly tries to help a young woman find her husband.

Five Dolls for an August Moon(it)

A wealthy playboy gathers a group of bourgeois friends at his isolated beach house for a weekend of relaxation. When bodies start pilling up, they realize they’re trapped with a killer in their midst, sending them in a frenzy to figure out who amongst them is killing the others before they are killed next.

Hunky Dory(en)

In the heat of the summer of 1976, drama teacher Vivienne fights sweltering heat and general teenage apathy to put on an end-of-term version of Shakespeare's The Tempest.

I Live in Fear(ja)

Kiichi Nakajima, an elderly foundry owner, is convinced that Japan will be affected by an imminent nuclear war, and resolves to move his family to safety in Brazil. His family decides to have him ruled incompetent and Dr. Harada, a Domestic Court counselor, attempts to arbitrate.

All the Boys Are Called Patrick(fr)

A pickup artist/womanizer named Patrick inadvertently pursues two young women who happen to be roommates.

North of Normal(en)

After being raised in the wilderness, a teenage girl moves to the city hoping for a normal life with her anything but normal mother.

The Stream(en)

In the wake of her boyfriend's suicide, a young woman and her friend discover a live video stream that sets off a nightmarish chain of events.

Red Woods(en)

A group of urbex enthusiasts travel to the backwoods of Appalachia to capture footage of abandoned houses, when they unwittingly become the subjects of a much darker video - made by a different kind of "enthusiast".

The Hill(en)

North Africa, World War II. British soldiers on the brink of collapse push beyond endurance to struggle up a brutal incline. It's not a military objective. It's The Hill, a manmade instrument of torture, a tower of sand seared by a white-hot sun. And the troops' tormentors are not the enemy, but their own comrades-at-arms.

Pauline at the Beach(fr)

Marion is about to divorce from her husband and takes her 15-year-old niece, Pauline, on a vacation to Granville. There, she meets an old love...

From Here to Eternity(en)

In 1941 Hawaii, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his captain's wife and second in command are falling in love.

Oslo, August 31st(no)

One day in the life of Anders, a young recovering drug addict, who takes a brief leave from his treatment center to interview for a job and catch up with old friends in Oslo.

Girlhood(fr)

Oppressed by her family setting, dead-end school prospects and the boys law in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of three free-spirited girls. She changes her name, her dress code, and quits school to be accepted in the gang, hoping that this will be a way to freedom.

Death in Venice(it)

Composer Gustav von Aschenbach travels to Venice for health reasons. There, he becomes obsessed with the stunning beauty of an adolescent Polish boy named Tadzio who is staying with his family at the same Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido as Aschenbach.

Day for Night(fr)

A committed film director struggles to complete his movie while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.