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Lolita Chammah Movies

2008  
 
Add God's Offices to Queue Add God's Offices to top of Queue  
A group of women struggling with their sexuality speak openly with the female counselors who wonder if such a thing as "sexual freedom" is truly possible in this tale of the incredible hidden in mundane, everyday events. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

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Starring:
Anne AlvaroNathalie Baye, (more)
 
2007  
 
A novelist, an actress, and a struggling young singer all attempt to make their mark in modern day Paris in director Marc Fitoussi's cynical entertainment industry satire. Bertrand (Denis Podalydes) is a French literary professor whose students all know that he is shacked up with pretty math teacher Solange (Valerie Benguigui) despite the couple's best efforts to keep their relationship under the radar. Though no one in the school much cares for Bertrand's prose, self-flagellating student Frederic (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet) is the one notable exception. Meanwhile, as Bertrand struggles to deliver his second novel, recent big city arrival Cora (Emilie Dequenne) finds that her fondness for outmoded songwriters may be having an adverse effect on her career trajectory. While Cora struggles to make ends meet by working at a popular chain steakhouse, even this attempt to remain afloat ultimately proves disastrous. Somewhere in another part of town, embittered actress Alice (Sandrine Kiberlain) resents the fact that she is consistently passed over for "real" film roles after accepting work as an anime voiceover artist. Yet despite the fact that Alice resents her drama school classmate Annabella (Camille Japy) due to the latter's success on the legit stage, Annabella has her own problems as evidenced by her troubled relationships with her nephew and sister. Later, the engineer for Alice's dubbing session eventually works up the muster to speak her mind, and Cora begins to sense that her luck is finally turning after a chance encounter with veteran songwriter Joseph Costals (Jean-Pierre Kalfon). ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

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Starring:
Sandrine KiberlainÉmilie Dequenne, (more)
 
2004  
 
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Claire Denis' elliptical drama L'Intrus was inspired by a short book written by philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy about his heart transplant. In the film, Michel Subor (Le Petit Soldat) stars as Louis, who lives fairly self-sufficiently in a small cabin in the snowy wilds near the Swiss border. Louis has a son (Grégoire Colin, who also starred with Subor in the director's Beau Travail) whose wife (Florence Loiret-Caille) is a border guard, and they have two young children, but Louis has a strained relationship with his family. He lives a hard, stoic life out in the cold. Mysterious strangers cross the border at all hours of the day and night, and Louis vigilantly -- sometimes violently -- protects his homestead. It soon comes to pass that he needs a heart transplant. Louis quickly and quietly makes some arrangements, and travels to Pusan for the operation. He makes the demand that he be given a young man's heart, and not a woman's. His health still failing, Louis then travels to Tahiti, hoping for a final reunion with another son, whom he abandoned years before. The footage of the young Subor in Tahiti was taken from an uncompleted adaptation of a Robert Louis Stevenson story directed by Paul Gégauff. L'Intrus also stars Béatrice Dalle, Katia Golubeva, and Alex Descas in smaller roles. The film was shown by the Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of 2005's Rendez-Vous With French Cinema. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

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Starring:
Michel SuborGrégoire Colin, (more)
 
2003  
 
Coline Serreau's 18 Ans Apres (18 Years Later) is a sequel to her 1985 film Three Men and a Cradle, which was re-made in America as Three Men and a Baby. Marie (Madeleine Besson) is now on the verge of turning 18. She decides to spend a summer vacation with her mother Sylvia. Joining them are Sylvia's husband (Ken Samuels) and his two young adult boys (Gregoire Lavollay-Porter and James Thierree). Eventually her three "dads" (André Dussollier, Michel Boujenah, and Roland Giraud) and a housekeeper show up. The differences between Americans and the French, the foibles of single parenthood, and the pitfalls of middle-aged love and sex provide the material for the film's comedy. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

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Starring:
André DussollierMichel Boujenah, (more)
 
2003  
 
Filmmaker C.S. Leigh writes and directs his first feature film with the extreme drama The Process. French actress Béatrice Dalle plays an actress trying to kill herself. Through long, uncomfortable takes, the film explores her tortured existence. After a disastrous on-stage appearance with her estranged husband (Guillaume Depardieu), she engages in a rough sexual three-way with two men (Daniel Duval and Sebastien Viala). She also loses her child to a car accident and her breast to cancer. The Process was screened at the Berlin Film Festival in 2004 with live musical accompaniment by John Cale. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

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Starring:
Béatrice DalleGuillaume Depardieu, (more)
 
2000  
 
Noted French filmmaker Laurence Ferreira Barbosa directs this loosely-structured triptych about a trio of unconnected people who struggle through the loneliness of their lives. Impetuous 17-year-old Marguerite (Lolita Chammah), who feels cut off from both her family and classmates, passes the time by talking to God. Eventually, she decides to enter a convent. Meanwhile, housewife Claire (Isabelle Hubbert) is frustrated after ten years of childless marriage. While going to visit a fertility expert in Paris, she happens upon an old lover, gets picked up by some guy at a bar and has a bizarre encounter with an America singer (Robert Kramer). Meantime, Jacques (Frederic Pierrot) is divorced, unemployed, and loathed by his daughter. Just as his life looks one long exercise in desperate futility, he meets comely Eva (Juliette Andrea). Suddenly, he transforms himself into a private dick, trying to track down a missing associate. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

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Starring:
Juliette AndresLolita Chammah, (more)
 
1988  
 
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The women in this story are the customers of amateur abortionist Isabelle Huppert. The time is 1941, and the place is a Nazi-occupied French town. Struggling to survive, Huppert turns to illegally terminating unwanted pregnancies for a hefty fee. As her income increases, Huppert moves her family from their grimy surroundings to a posh apartment, sharing her digs with her new friend, prostitute Marie Trintignant. Completely seduced by her affluent lifestyle, Huppert ignores her shell-shocked husband Francois Cluzet, preferring to dally with Nazi collaborator Nils Tavernier. Things take a disastrous turn after one of Huppert's "customers" dies and her disgruntled husband turns her over to the authorities. Story of Women was inspired by the real-life tale of Marie-Louise Girard, who in 1943 was executed by the Vichy Government, who'd declared abortion as a Crime Against the State because it diminished the number of potential soldiers. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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Starring:
Isabelle HuppertFrançois Cluzet, (more)