Roschdy Zem Movies

Recalling such prior efforts as Maurice Pialat's 1984 Police and Bob Swaim's 1982 La Balance, Gallic director Olivier van Hoofstadt's relentlessly tense and violent action thriller Go Fast plunges into the violent and dangerous world of French metropolitan police. Roschdy Zem stars as Marek, a cop involved in a risky sting operation against a drug trafficking ring. In the process, his best friend and partner dies, which prompts his transfer to an undercover division of the force. He soon learns that his new mission will involve infiltrating a gang involved in smuggling cannabis from southern Spain to small-town France. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

A young, inexperienced detective is inducted into an elite Paris plainclothes unit in Le Petit Lieutenant, directed by Xavier Beauvois (Don't Forget You're Going to Die). Antoine (Jalil Lespert or Human Resources) is as gung-ho as they come, and eager to learn everything he needs to know to be a good cop, although he misses his wife (Bérangère Allaux), a schoolteacher who stayed behind in the country when Antoine took his new job. Antoine socializes with his new comrades, who seem to drink an awful lot, with the exception of the unit commander, Caroline (Nathalie Baye), an alcoholic who has just returned from a long stint on desk duty. The other experienced detectives that Antoine looks up to are the cynical Louis (Antoine Chappey), and the stalwart Solo (Roschdy Zem), who in addition to the rigors of the job faces bigotry due to his Moroccan origin. When a Polish immigrant is found murdered in a canal near the station, the unit begins a methodical investigation, eventually learning that the victim was last seen with a couple of Russians. When a second victim is rescued from the waters of the canal a few days later, the case takes on a new urgency. As Antoine tries to fit in and learn on the job, Caroline struggles with her addiction and forms an almost maternal bond with the rookie. Le Petit Lieutenant also features Jacques Perrin, and was shown by the Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of their 2006 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Euro screen legends Gérard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil star, respectively, as French cops Denis Klein and Leo Vrinks, in Olivier Marchal's tough-as-steel policier 36 Quai des Orfevres. The story unravels at the titular Parisian police headquarters, where Klein (who heads up the department's anti-crime unit) and Vrinks (who manages the "search and action squad") go head-to-head -- competing with one another not only to succeed their boss, but to be the first to solve an ongoing series of security-van robberies. Ultimately, the men resort to sabotaging one another, and thus set the stage for an ongoing series of twists, turns, reversals, and betrayals. Valeria Golino and Catherine Marchal co-star; Olivier Marchal co-authored the script with Dominique Loiseau, Julien Rappeneau, and Franck Mancuso. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

French filmmaker Pierre Jolivet directs the offbeat comedy Filles Uniques (Sole Sisters). Upper-class attorney Carole (Sandrine Kiberlain) meets working-class Tina (Sylvie Testud), who has been arrested twice for shoplifting expensive shoes. The two women start up an unlikely friendship after Tina proves herself particularly valuable to a certain case. Carole then takes her on board for another case involving corrupt casino player Mermot (Francois Berleand) and local cop (Roschdy Zem). Filmed on-location in Paris and Annecy, Sole Sisters was screened at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

In writer/director/composer/cinematographer Siegfried's handheld whirlwind of a movie Sansa, the title character is an ethnically ambiguous street hustler played by Roschdy Zem. Sansa travels the globe, hawking and bartering on the street, selling tourists sketches of themselves and consistently running afoul of police, airport security, and military personnel, all the while keeping a sharp eye out for beautiful women. When Sansa sees an attractive woman, he has a tendency to follow her wherever he goes, and as he travels from country to country, covering France, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Russia, India, Japan, Egypt, Portugal, and Ghana, this pattern pretty much stays the same. At some point during a particularly heated pursuit, he inadvertently steps onto the stage where a ballet is being rehearsed. The elderly orchestra conductor, an internationally renowned musician named Click (Israeli violinist Ivry Gitlis), chides him for interrupting the rehearsal, but later invites him to a café. The two strike up an unlikely friendship, based in part on their shared admiration for beautiful young women. Thereafter, Sansa seems to run into Click wherever he goes. In Italy, Sansa chats up Valentina (Valentina Cervi) until her boyfriend shows up and chases him off. In Spain, he interrupts a woman's (Emma Suarez) boardroom business presentation to sweet-talk her. In Japan, he meets an old friend, June (Ayako Fujitani), who laments his inevitable departure. In Russia, he gets caught in a crossfire between soldiers and Chechen rebels. Sansa was shown by the Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of its 2004 Rendez-Vous With French Cinema series. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

A young woman bent on revenge becomes a legendary thief in the vein of Robin Hood in director Bernie Bonvoisin's 2002 comic swashbuckler Blanche. When she was 14, young Blanche de Perrone's family was massacred by the Cardinal Mazarin's (Jean Rochefort) right-hand man, Captain KKK (Antoine de Caunes), after her businessman father suspected the cleric of great evildoing. The lone survivor of the murder, Blanche vowed vengeance and eventually became a greatly feared robber of stagecoaches. Meanwhile, Mazarin has begun to set up his own little drug dealing operation without rousing the suspicion of the sexually-kinky reigning monarchs King Louis XIV (Jose Garcia) and Queen Anne of Austria (Carole Bouquet). As Blanche (Lou Doillon) begins to put into motion her plan to bring down Mazarin, she unexpectedly falls in love with royal spy Bonange (Roschdy Zem), who is not totally insensitive to Blanche's quest. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide

Two people brought together by fate find it's not easy to live on love in this drama with a sharp sociopolitical subtext. Agatha (Rona Hartner) is a beautiful young woman from Romania who had a brief but passionate love affair with a French surgeon when he visited her country as part of a charitable medical team. Agatha has decided to come to France to rekindle their romance, but when she arrives in the city of Roubaix, she discovers he didn't take their relationship nearly as seriously as she did. With nowhere to go, Agatha is befriended by Mehdi (Roschdy Zem), a cab driver who helps her find a place to stay. Mehdi is attracted to Agatha, and she returns his interest, but as it turns out Mehdi is already seeing someone -- Cecile (Karole Rocher), who is having an affair with Mehdi while involved with his close friend Marc (Pierre Berriau). Hoping to move away from Roubaix with Agatha and start a new life, Mehdi gets a job as a bill collector, while Marc impulsively walks off his job and an angry Cecile gives him his walking papers. Agatha soon discovers, however, that Roubaix offers few opportunities for undocumented aliens, and that even lifelong residents have a hard time getting by. Sauve-Moi received its North American premiere at the 2001 San Francisco Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Two lost souls make a pact to lift each other up and provide the support needed to kick their bad habits and take one last shot at living their dreams in this introspective drama starring Fanny Ardant and Rochdy Zem. Nina (Ardent) is an unemployed actress who has just taken a lethal overdose of tranquilizers. Stumbling though the streets of Paris in a deathly haze, Nina collapses into unconsciousness. Fortunately for Nina, lonely Algerian Sami (Zem) happened to jog by at just the right time. But as soon as Sami previously appeared, he vanishes back into the blackness of night, leaving the recovered Nina with no one to thank for saving her life. Determined to let her guardian angel know just how thankful she truly is, Nina discovers that Sami was once a promising long-distance runner whose dreams of Olympic stardom had been dashed, and who now scrapes by as a transvestite prostitute. Realizing that they've both hit rock bottom, Nina and Sami make a pledge to support one another to the point where they can both get clean and pursue their dreams before it's too late. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Author Francoise Giroud once descibed the 15-year span from 1967 to 1981 as La parenthese enchantee, the era when the sexual revolution raged in France, beginning with the legalization of the birth control pill and ending with the dawn of the AIDS pandemic. Michel Spinosa's drama examines the lives and loves of five people who lived through this time. Longtime friends Paul (Roschdy Zem) and Vincent (Vincent Elbaz) meet Eve (Karin Viard) and Alice (Clotilde Courau) while on a vacation in 1969. Paul and Eve's first night together results in her becoming pregnant, and they soon marry. Vincent is attracted to Alice, but she disappears until the day he marries Marie (Geraldine Pailhas). Several years later, Eve is bored with Paul and feels sexually unsatisfied; Paul tries to learn how to be a better lover by reading the latest self-help books, while Eve begins having an affair with Vincent, who is unhappy with Marie. Alice, meanwhile, becomes an outspoken feminist activist after undergoing a dangerous illegal abortion. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Siegfried made his directorial debut with this French drama. In addition to directing and scripting, the multi-talented twentysomething Siegfried composed the film's jazzy, uptempo music score and also shared the camerawork (with Vincent Buron and Herve Lode) that features handheld scenes tracking through the Paris Metro. The central role of Louise is portrayed by Elodie Bouchez, who won a 1998 Cannes "Best Actress" award for The Dreamlife of Angels. When Louise has an encounter with homeless Remi (Roschdy Zem), they have a magnetic attraction, but she is already attached to illiterate shoplifter and pickpocket punk Yaya (Gerald Thomassin). Although allied with Yaya in petty crimes, Louise lives with her widowed father (Lou Castel), a devoted writer of fiction. After a Metro bum (Bruce Myers) tells her of his desire to see his young son, she plucks the kid, Gaby (Antoine de Merle), right out of school, making him the newest rookie recruited into their subway gang. Shoplifting in a department store, the young toughs escape the store's security guards by hiding in the ballet rehearsal rooms of the nearby opera. But does Louise really belong with the subway toughs, or is she just pretending? When she's arrested, Louise is forced to reexamine her lifestyle. Some aspects of the plot parallel Leos Carax's haunting and memorable Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991) -- as does the use of genuine homeless people in certain scenes. Shown at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival in the Certain Regard section. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

In this French comedy, Algerian Nora (Seloua Hamse) tells her parents she works the nightshift at a hospital emergency ward, but in truth, Nora and her friend Carol (Karole Rocher) cross the border each night to work the bar at a large disco. Nora's travel plans are interrupted by a surprise pregnancy, and after the French father rejects her, she then informs mom, who decides that landing a husband is vital to maintain the family's honor. Shown at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide