Curiosités

How is a planned city designed? What consequences does creating one has on the environment? What are the living conditions in such areas ? Such are the questions asked by Eric Rohmer in this TV documentary through the particular case of Cergy-Pontoise, near Paris, still unfinished in 1975 when filming took place.

"Concrete in the city" is a study of modern stone architecture. Includes interviews with French architects Paul Virilio and Claude Parent.

Eric Rohmer leads a conversation with Jean Renoir and Henri Langlois on the art of filmmaker Louis Lumière. The cinematographic pioneer Lumière produced thousands of documentaries in the end of the 19th century, but also some short comedies with amateur actors. The films are done in one shot and are only 1 minute in length. Lumiére and his operators chose a place, put up the camera and then recorded what happened in front of the lens. In spite of this both Renoir and Langlois argue that the films of Lumière are not simply reproductions of reality, but pieces of art. Renoir points out that Lumiére didn't just reproduce the externals of what he saw, but also its spirit and inner life. The films are not only showing a piece of contemporary reality, but Lumière's vision of that reality. Langlois remarks that the films of Lumière were not made at random, but out of a consciously chosen dramaturgy and composition. Lumiére and his team chose, after long deliberations, the motif of the film as well as the camera-angle. There is usually some kind of beginning and end of the film. The main action never occurs in the center of the screen, but either at the right or the left side of it. This means that the main movements happen along a diagonal across the screen, which produces a dynamic impression. The films are made in one shot, but the shots are usually very deep, which means that you get some close-ups in the foreground at the same time as you see something happen in full scale behind that and something else even more far away. The conversation with Renoir and Langlois is interspersed with some of Lumière's films, to underline the arguments.

The life in the French countryside of Montfaucon as told by a farmer's wife all with its idyllic mundanities and responsibilities.

A documentary account of landscape change in and around Paris in the early 1960s.

Reverend Francis Ashby (Sir Michael Palin), a senior Oxford don on vacation alone in the Alps, meets vacationing American Miss Caroline Hartley (Connie Booth) and her companion Miss Elinor Hartley (Trini Alvarado), the blossoming Irish-American girl she adopted many years before. Ashby finds he enjoys their company, particularly that of Elinor, and both of the women are drawn to him. Back at Oxford he is nevertheless taken aback when they arrive unannounced. Women are not allowed in the College grounds, let alone the rooms. Indeed any liaison, however innocent, is frowned on by the upstanding Fellows.

Based on the true story of a transatlantic business correspondence about used books, which later developed into a close, long-distance friendship that evolved over the course of two decades.

Follows a CIA team in Berlin and their clandestine activities.

Myths, Legends and Folklore of Britain re-told in 8 tales woven together by a storyteller

In mid-1800s England, Oscar is a young Anglican priest, a misfit and an outcast, but with the soul of an angel. As a boy, even though from a strict Pentecostal family, he felt God told him through a sign to leave his father and his faith and join the Church of England. Lucinda is a teen-aged Australian heiress who has an almost desperate desire to liberate her sex from the confines of the male-dominated culture of the Australia of that time. She buys a glass factory and has a dream of building a church made almost entirely of glass, and then transporting it to Bellingen, a remote settlement on the north coast. Oscar and Lucinda meet on a ship going to Australia; once there, they are for different reasons ostracized from society, and as a result "join forces" together. Oscar and Lucinda are both passionate gamblers, and Lucinda bets Oscar her entire inheritance that he cannot transport the glass church to the Outback safely. Oscar accepts her wager, and this leads to the events that will change both their lives forever.

In an alternate history, during the time of real life Napoleonic Wars, two men of destiny, the gifted recluse Mr. Norrell and daring spellcasting novice Jonathan Strange, use magic to help England.

Ian has recently eloped with country girl Lisa. The have moved from London back to her hometown Snowle, and comedy ensues.

In 1813, Capitaine Jacques St. Ives, a Hussar in the Napoleonic wars, is captured and sent to a Scottish prison camp. He's a swashbuckler, so the prison's commander, Major Farquar Bolingbroke Chevening, asks for lessons in communicating with women. Both men have their eyes on the lovely Flora, who resides with her aunt, the iconoclastic and well-traveled Miss Susan Emily Gilcrist. By chance, living close to the camp is Jacques's grandfather and brother, whom Jacques believes died years before. Jacques decides to escape, find his relatives, and win the hand of Flora; Major Chevening and an unforeseen enemy stand in his way. Can Miss Gilcrist contrive to make everything work out?

A human detective and a fairy rekindle a dangerous affair in a Victorian fantasy world, where the city's uneasy peace collapses when a string of murders reveals an unimaginable monster.

In 1976, John Lennon and Paul McCartney have a chat about their lives and discuss whether The Beatles will ever reunite.

The story of Hong Kong, from New Year's Day to June 30th, 1997, when the British left their colony and turned it over to the People's Republic of China.

Two teachers vie for the right to stage a play written by Jane Austen when she was twelve years old.

A Cold War spy thriller that tells the story of invisible wars fought by MI5.

A mystery in Shakespeare's sonnets is explored.

Two teenagers, Icky and Billy, grow tired of their life in Liverpool and decide to run away to North Wales. But it's not long before their past catches up with them.

After serving time for a wrongful bribery charge, former detective Lomax seeks vengeance aboard his narrow boat among canal travelers, isolated from the law.

Paired with her reliable and devoted chauffeur, Mrs Bradley's finely honed skills of investigation seek out the truth behind the mysteries surrounding a death at the opera, crimes of passion at a circus, poisoning and family secrets.