Samba (Bakary Sangare) has returned unannounced to his home village, bringing with him a suitcase full of money. Despite his protests that this is money that he earned in the city, the villagers have their doubts. In fact, he held up a gas station and unintentionally killed its attendant, and is in hiding here. Meanwhile, he has married a woman (Mariam Kaba) with a child who left her husband and built a house for her. He is building a bar with his remaining money, but he encounters a situation which makes him believe that he will be exposed to the police, and runs away, leaving a pregnant, very ill wife behind, much to the disgust of the villagers and Samba's own family.
Olivier, the nine-year-old son of Elisabeth and Serge, a country veterinarian, vanishes one afternoon on the way to his grandmother's house. The emotional aftermath of his disappearance sends his father packing and nearly destroys his mother.
An adolescent comes of age during a summer in the Rhône valley with his maternal grandparents. Jules seems a little too close to his mother and distant from his father, who wants Jules out of their Parisian house. It's to be a summer of transition, perhaps to a boarding school, and during these weeks in the country, Jules fishes with his grandfather; proves himself to the local youths, a group led by the bullying Red; takes on some tough guys; feels rejected by his mother; and, meets and pursues Evelyne, the village beauty. She's responsive, and Jules doesn't exactly know what to do next. Then, something happens that propels Jules into decisiveness and maturity.
After many years of rambling across Europe the aging Giacomo Casanova is impoverished. He wants to return to the Republic of Venice but he doesn't dare going there directly because he was a fugitive when he left. While he tries to find a way to get a pardon he meets a young lady named Marcelina. The more he shows his affection, the more ostentatiously she rejects him. Even so he doesn't give up on her because her lover Lorenzo has grave gaming debts. In return for the required money Lorenzo tells Casanova about a looming secret rendezvous with Marcelina. Moreover he lets Casanova take his place. Undercover of the night Casanova finally seduces her. Lorenzo later feels his honor was besmirched and demands satisfaction. Casanova kills him in a duel and then goes home to Venice.
A young man living in a cold southern village in South America, decides to start a trip looking for his father. By doing this he discovers unexpected facts about his Latin American essence.
Emile Michel, Lapland, orphan, is obliged to bring back within the tribe the ancestral totem: a gold plumb line "borrowed" formerly by his grandfather Raymond Michel. His quest will take him aboard a floating boat that crosses Baffin Bay in the icy waters of Greenland.
In the 1930s, Agaguk lives his traditional Inuit life. But one day, there is a murder in the tribe and Agaguk becomes a suspect. Soon he becomes persecuted by Henderson, a mean mountie, and he must flee through the cold winter of Northern Quebec.
Three penniless artists become friends in modern-day Paris: Rodolfo, an Albanian painter with no visa, Marcel, a playwright and magazine editor with no publisher, and Schaunard, a post-modernist composer of execrable noise.
Marie lives with Antoine, but while he is away she meets Paul, a filmmaker visiting from Canada. Paul is instantly smitten and wants her to marry him. She puts him off by saying that she and Antoine have decided to have a baby. When Antoine returns, he becomes vividly jealous of his girlfriend's chaste encounter, which provokes her into having an affair with Paul.
A poor French teenage girl engages in an illicit affair with a wealthy Chinese heir in 1920s Saigon. For the first time in her young life she has control, and she wields it deftly over her besotted lover throughout a series of clandestine meetings and torrid encounters.
A beautiful widow is determined to uncover the facts behind her husband's death.
It is World War II, and the Nazis have taken over Poland. In this story, three citified children of Resistance fighters have taken refuge in the mountains, and they manage to hook up with three local youngsters. All six of them are being hunted by the Germans, and they are also being looked for by an adult who wants to take them to greater safety. Along the way, the children occasionally put on spontaneous theatricals.
Adrien is 19 years old. He has not met his father, Clément for 4 years. Adrien returns home and the two try to better understand each other. Clément lives together with Louis, a twenty-something girl who wants to be an actress. The boy starts a flirt with Louise which pushes the father-son relationship back to a crisis...
After leaving the asylum, Vincent van Gogh settles in the home of Doctor Gachet, where he keeps painting amidst the torments of his failing mental health. He begins an affair with his host’s daughter, however, she soon realizes that he doesn’t love her and that his heart beats only for art.
Set against Paris' oldest bridge, the Pont Neuf, while it was closed for repairs, this film is a love story between two young vagrants: Alex, a would be circus performer addicted to alcohol and sedatives and Michele, a painter driven to a life on the streets because of a failed relationship and an affliction which is slowly turning her blind.
A meeting of two world famous climbers, one an experienced mountaineer the other a sport climber, and a journalist (Ivan) results in a bet on which of the two is the best climber. Roger (the mountaineering expert) states that Martin (the sport climber) wouldn't survive a day on a 'real' climbing expedition, although he is considered to be the world's best sport climber (having just won an indoor 'world championship,' an event depicted in the opening scene). They plan to climb 'Cerro Torre,' in the Patagonia region of South America, near the Argentinian/Chilean border, one of the world's most difficult mountains, especially considering the extreme weather conditions common to the area.
A con artist couple takes a young, handsome petty thief under their wing, but jealousies flare when the woman develops an interest in him.
A large family crams into a three-room flat in a drab suburb.Twelve people ,soon joined,out of the blue, by the prodigal son, released from jail.To make matters worse,the TV set , then the sofa and finally the refrigerator vanish into thin air.Neverthelesss, life goes on ,with mom's nervous breakdowns , dad's absences ;The daughter, Julie, an abandoned social worker,is always sobbing ; her sister , rehearsing the "Hebrew slaves chorus" is eagerly waiting for her drafted fiancee.
As of his early childhood Robinson Crusoe has wanted to become a sailor. And when he does become one bad luck has it that the vessel he sails on gets shipwrecked. Being the only survivor of the catastrophe, he manages to take refuge on a desert island where he will spend several years, learning how to survive...
Patrick Perrault, a photo-journalist covering the war in Beirut in the late 1980s, is himself caught up in the hostilities when one day he is picked up and bundled into a car at gun-point. Blind-folded, he is taken to an unknown location where he discovers that he is being taken hostage by Lebanese guerrillas.