Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, "To Each His Own Cinema" brought together 33 of the world's pre-eminent filmmakers to produce short pieces exploring the multifarious facets of cinema and their perspective on the state of their chosen artform in the early 21st century.
In 200,000 years of existence, man has upset the balance on which the Earth had lived for 4 billion years. Global warming, resource depletion, species extinction: man has endangered his own home. But it is too late to be pessimistic: humanity has barely ten years left to reverse the trend, become aware of its excessive exploitation of the Earth's riches, and change its consumption pattern.
In 1980 the black Falashas in Ethiopia are recognised as genuine Jews and are secretly carried to Israel. The day before the transport the son of a Jewish mother dies. In his place and with his name (Schlomo) she takes a Christian 9-year-old boy.
Anne is at a crossroads in her life. Long married to a successful, driven but inattentive movie producer, she unexpectedly finds herself taking a car trip from Cannes to Paris with Jacques, a business associate of her husband. What should be a seven-hour drive turns into a carefree two-day adventure replete with diversions involving picturesque sights, fine food and wine, humor, wisdom and romance - reawakening Anne's senses and giving her a new lust for life.
A comedy/drama set in a village and centered on a battle of the sexes, where women threaten to withhold sexual favours as long as the men refuse to install a water pipe.
Paolo, an Italian tour bus driver living in Paris, has just summoned up the courage to propose marriage to his German girlfriend Greta. However, a chance encounter with a French woman on a bicycle the very next day turns Paolo's life upside down.
In a small town lost in the middle of nowhere, Edmond Zweck's funeral business is on the wing. The company now has only two employees: Georges, Zweck's right-hand man, and Eddy, a young man still a novice in the trade. One fine morning, however, a dead man pointed his nose. Hope is born again. Georges and Eddy are responsible for leading the deceased to his last abode. But in search of the cemetery that can not be found, the funeral convoy goes astray and the journey turns into a fiasco.
In a dystopia Paris, this is about a campaign manager named Tristan who is knocked sideways when he receives an anonymous letter containing a positive pregnancy test. Potentially suffering from a fatal and incurable genetic illness, Tristan becomes obsessed with the idea of finding the woman who sent him this test. He decides to carry out an investigation, risking his love life and his career in the process.
Mimi is 29 years old and still dreaming about a job she could get. She meets Paul, a sidelined lawyer, as she decides to seek employment. Together, they will defend Christophe, a conman who proclaims his innocence.
The Hugo's Brain is a French documentary-drama about autism. The documentary crosses authentic autistic stories with a fiction story about the life of an autistic (Hugo), from childhood to adulthood, portraying his difficulties and his handicap.
Despite their differences, Celeste and Sihem quickly become inseparable. The common will to get out of drugs seals their fusional friendship. This will be as much a force as an obstacle when, transferred from the center that welcomes them, they find themselves left to themselves, to the test of the real world and its temptations. They will have to fight to finally live.
Angélique is a 60-year-old bar hostess. She still likes to party, she still likes men. At night, she makes them drink, in a cabaret by the French-German border. As time goes by, clients become rare. But Michel, her regular client, is still in love with her. One day, he asks Angélique to marry him.
For six years, Melati, 18, has been fighting the plastic pollution that is ravaging her country, Indonesia. Like her, a generation is rising up to fix the world. Everywhere, teenagers and young adults are fighting for human rights, the climate, freedom of expression, social justice, access to education or food. Dignity. Alone against all odds, sometimes risking their lives and safety, they protect, denounce and care for others. The earth. And they change everything. Melati goes to meet them across the globe. At a time when everything seems to be or has been falling apart, these young people show us how to live. And what it means to be in the world today.
Four gay French expatriots share a business in Barcelona. When they and their parents are thrown together for a "coming out" party, another French Farce ensues.
One evening, Amra, a young Algerian living in France, accidentally runs over a pedestrian. Riddled with guilt and the certainty that she will lose her French identity papers, Amra is miraculously proved innocent by Angélique, a beautiful redhead who is as open and without any hang-ups as Amra is unsociable and introverted. The two young women become friends, but then Angélique's attitude becomes increasingly strange, indeed, even troubling...
Set in 1973 during the coup d'etat in Chile, Max recalls his encounters in London during World War II with French aviator Antoine, a childhood hero he first met in his native country one morning in 1932 and who initiated him to the wonders of aviation.
A beautiful, self-centered young woman's life turns upside down when she suddenly "loses her clitoris" (i.e. her ability to have an orgasm).
Paul Vidal is a country doctor in a small town. A husband and father, he seems to have all he needs to be happy. Yet he suffers a serious nervous breakdown, making him unable to practise.
About sweeping love, rock & roll and getting rid of all that stale air of the fifties. You've got the good guys - that's Lulu and Jimi - and the bad guys: Lulu's mother Gertrud, her secret lover Schultz, the chauffeur, and a wicked old shrink, Von Oppeln, crouching in his gloomy office like a spider waiting to pounce on his prey Lulu. Light and darkness, bright garish colours, hot rock & roll and wild dance numbers mark this road movie about lovers fleeing from the evil powers of a deeply bigoted society. A drama about the relationship between a young black man and a rich German girl.
A Himalayan legend of a love struggling against the inevitability of death, an astonishing tale spanning from the early 19th century mountain existence, to hectic, bustling modern day Tokyo.
