
Synonymes
By Nadav Lapid
2019 | 123 min | Drama
SYNONYMES turns a migrant's fight to belong in Paris into a cutting drama about nationalism, identity and compromise under pressure and exile.


By Nadav Lapid
2019 | 123 min | Drama
SYNONYMES turns a migrant's fight to belong in Paris into a cutting drama about nationalism, identity and compromise under pressure and exile.

2020 | 131 min | Documentary
The old freight station in Zurich has to make way for a new police and justice center. From a window overlooking a construction site, Thomas Imbach has been watching the old freight station disappear from his studio in Zurich for seven years. In its place, a massive concrete complex is rising: the city's new police and justice center. With his camera, Imbach documents the transformation of the urban space and asks a fundamental question: What is lost when places disappear, and what emerges in their ...

2014 | 125 min | Drama
After Raoul Peck documented the earthquake that shook Port-au-Prince in January 2010 in his film DEADLY AID, he focuses on a bourgeois couple in MURDER IN PACOT. The earthquake in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince in January 2010 turned large parts of the city into a field of rubble. The villa of a married couple living in the upscale neighborhood of Pacot was also destroyed. In the ruins, they try to reorganize their everyday life and rent out the undamaged part of the house to Alex, a European NGO ...

2021 | 101 min | Queer
A young man who loves himself more than anyone else discovers a secret that turns his life upside down. After the death of his grandmother, he finds out that his mother, whom he believed to be dead, is still alive—and that he has a twin brother who was raised in a remote monastery by an obscene priest. When the brothers meet, they recognize not only their physical resemblance, but also a deeper connection that goes beyond mere mirror image. Their reunion ignites a web of desire, revenge, and redemption ...

2005 | 95 min | Love & Sex
Shot on video with dynamic hand-held camerawork and a high volume of scathing dialogue, RENDEZVOUS is the debut of self-taught filmmaker Alexander Schüler. The film follows two couples. Without their respective partners' knowledge, all four set up dates with a person of the other couple. The swapped partners unexpectedly run into each other, and all hell breaks loose as societal conventions are challenged and deep-rooted resentment comes to the fore…

2018 | 136 min | Drama
Etienne comes to Paris to study film at the Sorbonne. He meets Mathias and Jean-Noël, who share his passion for movies. But as they spend the year studying, they must face challenges in friendship and love and decide on their artistic struggles. Director Jean Paul Civeyrac, a key protagonist of the new ‘Nouvelle Vague’, creates a tenderly melancholic black-and-white study of experiences with art and life. A PARIS EDUCATION was presented in the Panorama section of the Berlinale, where it received ...

2018 | 88 min | Drama
Amin has been living in France for nine years, separated from his family in Senegal. His daily life consists of hard work on construction sites and living in a hostel with other migrants. His relationship with his wife Aïcha and their three children is limited to rare visits and financial support. When he meets Gabrielle, a single French woman, a tender relationship develops between them. Amin, shaped by a sense of duty and restraint, faces the challenge of reconciling his emotions and responsibilities. The ...

2018 | 101 min | Drama
Frank is a dedicated logistics manager at a sea freight company whose life revolves around his demanding job. His commitment has brought him not only professional success but a comfortable lifestyle for his wife and five children. However, Frank's world collapses when he makes a morally dubious decision during a crisis at work, leading to his immediate dismissal. The film explores the profound impact of this turning point. Frank, unable to confess the true reason for his unemployment to his family, ...

2024 | 94 min | Drama
A father travels to Marseille, a city full of contrasts, to fill the void left by his daughter's death. Raoul, deeply affected by loss and guilt, embarks on an emotional exploration that leads him through the traces of her life. He meets her friends, joins the world of their band and even talks to her former dealer. In doing so, he tries to piece together the mosaic of memories, secrets and truths that his daughter left behind. The film moves between intimacy and urban wildness, captured in stunning ...

2022 | 98 min | Drama
Ramsès earns his living as a fortune teller – a charismatic con artist with a keen sense of people's desires. In the Parisian district of La Goutte d'Or, he has built a comfortable life for himself with staged visions. But when a group of fearless teenagers shows up and takes control of the streets, his system is thrown off balance. Amidst mistrust, violence, and growing uncertainty, Ramsès, of all people, is confronted with a genuine, shattering vision. SONS OF RAMSES (original title: GOUTTE D'OR) ...

2016 | 88 min | Drama
At the University of Akron, Ohio, first-year students Benny and Christopher meet at a football game and are immediately drawn to each other. Supported by their open-minded families, their relationship develops quickly and intensely. But a tragic event from the past that connects both families threatens to destroy their young love. The film addresses the challenges that lovers face when old wounds are reopened. It shows how deeply rooted grief and unresolved guilt can influence the present. The ...

2006 | 93 min | Drama
REQUIEM begins in a small town in southern Germany in the early 1970s, where Michaela Klingler finally leaves a strict Catholic home after repeated stays in hospital for epilepsy. At university in Tübingen, she tastes a wider life through Stefan and her friend Hanna, and REQUIEM follows the fragile hope that freedom might last. That hope cracks when Michaela collapses in her residence hall. What seems at first like another attack becomes something far more frightening to her: inner voices, grotesque ...

1930 | 77 min | Timeless
Siodmak, known for his groundbreaking film Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday, 1929), had to leave Germany in 1933 because of his Jewish heritage. His escape took him and his brother Curt first to France and finally to the US, which was then a safe haven for people threatened with persecution. Today, in light of current debates about refugees, asylum, and especially in view of the mass deportations under Donald Trump, this background seems frighteningly relevant. The former “safe haven” of the ...