Documentary movies

Montreal — one of the few remaining affordable cities in North America — is now in the midst of an unprecedented housing crisis. An intimate portrait of socio-political resistance, this multilayered film explores the human impact of real estate speculation on the cities of tomorrow.

Marie-Philip is a PhD student and part-time professor who loves cats and Harry Potter. But one week before her 29th birthday, she is diagnosed with breast cancer. For a year, without false modesty, we follow her through each step as she confides in us with shocking honesty. An ode to life, to courage and to the resilience of all those who fight every day against disease.

Samir hardly knows his father. Hoping to become closer with him, he decides to accompany a hunter on a expedition in the mountains.

Between 1931 to 2002, Switzerland issued some six million seasonal residence permits, known as "A" permits, to immigrant workers. This status carried drastic rules, such as a ban on family reunification and a stay in Switzerland limited to nine months a year. In open letters, former seasonal workers and their children recount the impact this system had on their lives.

A portrait of French filmmaker Michel Gondry, creator, for three decades, of an imperfect, astonishing, fascinating, damaged and poetic work.

Early 2048, Google, which now owns the bulk of the planet, finds a remedy for death in the form of a digital immortality application. Reserved for a rich and powerful male elite, the programme’s source code is stolen by a group of hackers who make it available to everyone.

Philippe Ginestet, 66, is the owner of the GIFI and TATI chain of stores. With his fortune estimated at 2.3 billion euros, he is the 27th richest Frenchman. But within the closed club of the great French bosses, he is not the only one. Self-made man, French incarnation of the American dream, his management methods are atypical: motivation seminars organized in his luxurious chalet in Megève, poker tournaments between employees, trips to Las Vegas... A corporate culture pushed to the extreme.

Documentary on the life and work of F.W. Murnau.

A handful of photographers look back on the Documerica Project, a long-forgotten epic photo survey of the American environment launched in the early 1970s at the height of environmental awareness. Embodying a moment of truth in a country that had reached the limits of its American Dream, the images of Documerica bear witness to a missed meeting with History. And beyond that, they announce the world in which we live today.

In Europe, a new generation of neo-Nazis is radicalizing and carrying out targeted attacks on Muslims, Jews, migrants and leftists. Their goal is white supremacy. They organize themselves in online forums, run dating sites only for whites, or parade through small German towns like Wunsiedel in Bavaria every year with burning torches. They make no secret of their contempt for democratic institutions and want to specifically infiltrate the police and army. The ultra-right are no longer just agitating at the regulars' table, but are also showing an increasing willingness to use violence. In France, security authorities are also monitoring right-wing extremist groups. In 2022, French media revealed that there is a right-wing network within the French army that is openly committed to Nazi ideology. The racially motivated murder of Federico Aramburú in 2022 or the case of the right-wing agitator Daniel Conversano put the authorities on alert.

Haunted by three unfinished films, a filmmaker seeks to demystify his relationship with failure through encounters with past collaborators.

In the summer of 1963, François Mitterrand was going through a deep existential crisis. His political career was at a standstill and, after 19 years of marriage, the couple had grown apart. It was at this point that François Mitterrand met the woman who was to give new meaning to his life. Anne Pingeot, aged 19, was to become the companion of a lifetime, a woman who would be with him throughout his rise to power and who would remain by his side until his last breath. For the first time, Anne Pingeot has agreed to allow the fragments of this passionate love story — hundreds of letters and a diary — to be shown on television, before being donated to the National Library.

Flora, 30, is a French geneticist. She analyzes what is transmitted or not between generations. She lost her parents who were fervent Maoists within the proletarian Left from the end of the 1960s. She must now sort through her parents' apartment: what to choose to keep or not from their memory?

The prodigious genesis of a monument of world literature, too often reduced to its popular success, also recounts the tormented conversion of its author, Victor Hugo, to the ideal of social progress.

Duras, ever the challenging interviewer, forensically questions a Parisian zookeeper regarding the happiness of the animals in his charge. Intercut with her questions is stark black-and-white footage of the animals themselves behind bars, as they pace the length of their small concrete enclosures. Duras is very much on the side of the big cats. “Are you ever careless?” she asks the zookeeper. When he replies in the negative, Duras says smilingly: “In your position I’d be tempted to be careless”.

Narrator dreams of Madrid while being caught in a repetitive loop somewhere in Paris. He questions if his interlocutor is a real human being, as their dialogue, mostly built of citations, doesn't seem to be helping with breaking the loop.

At night, a group of men gather on the stadium of an elite school they once attended. Some of them are the big winners in this new society. Colonists on their own land, they look away so as not to see the gangrene that is growing there.