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Persepolis
This Oscar-nominated, multi-award-winning animation tells the story of the coming of age of a young Iranian girl, Marji. Finding a way to express your teenage self with all its contradictions, mini-rebellions and leanings towards Western pop culture isn’t easy in the middle of an Islamic revolution. With the full implications of the mullahs crackdown on
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Caramel
Caramel delightfully weaves together a comedy about the daily lives of five Lebanese women. Each woman has a romantic problem and they play out their dramas against the backdrop of Layal’s (Nadine Labaki) Beirut beauty salon. Will one resolve a relationship with a married man, will another marry while trying to cover up her past,
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The Class
The leading actor in The Class, Bégaudeau, is a man of many parts novelist, actor, screenplay writer and former teacher. The film is loosely based on a Bégaudeau’s fictionalised account of his experience as an idealistic, novice teacher. Director, Cantet, whose parents were teachers, workshopped the script with Bégaudeau and a group of teenage pupils
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I’ve Loved You So Long
In Claudel’s story of estrangement from society, Juliette (Scott Thomas) has served a term in prison, we can guess this much from her institutionalised appearance in the opening sequences. Her younger sister Lea, (Zylberstein), offers her refuge as she makes her first steps in the outside world, yet they have not seen each other for
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Waltz With Bashir
This animated film depicts director Ari Folman’s search for lost memories of his experience as an Israeli soldier during the 1982 Lebanon War. Framed as an exercise in therapy, it consists of a series of interviews with his former comrades. As more memories come to the surface, Ari realises that his unit played a role
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Jules et Jim
To mark the 25 anniversary of Truffaut’s death, WFC brings you Truffaut’s third film, recognised now and then as a defining film of French New Wave cinema. The story tells of a menage a trois. Two young writers, Jules (Werner), an Austrian, and Jim (Serre), a Frenchman, live a decadent lifestyle in pre WWI Europe
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35 Shots of Rum
Widowed father Lionel (Descas) lives with his adult daughter Josephine (Diop). He knows that their tranquil, mutually supportive life cannot last, she must find her own way in the world. The stability and comfort of their relationship in a drear Paris suburb is a magnet for family friend Gabrielle (Dogue) and neighbour Noe (Colin). Will
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Conversations with My Gardener
A disillusioned Parisian artist (Auteuil – Jean de Florette 1987, La Fille Sur Le Pont 2000, Cache 2007) facing divorce, returns to his childhood home in rural France. There he hires his former schoolmate as a gardener (Darroussin – Feux Rouges 2004, Le Pressentiment 2006). What follows is a quintessentially French film consisting of conversations
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Of Gods And Men
One of the most thought provoking films of 2010, this austere, meditative story about faith and martyrdom is based on real events in the Algeria in 1996. In a Cistercian monastery in Atlas Mountains eight monks become increasingly aware of their mortal danger as jihadists kill non-Muslim construction workers and rumours gather credence that they
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Les Diaboliques
Michel Delasalle (Meurisse) is the headmaster of a boys boarding school near Paris. He is verbally and physically abusive of both his wife Christina (Vera Clouzot) and his mistress, Nicole Horner (Signoret). The two women join forces to murder him, drowning him in his bath and subsequently attempting to make it look like suicide. When










