Roschdy Zem Movies

Young, naive and innocent, Pierre (Manuel Blanc) has dreams of becoming an actor. He is a good-looking and personable boy, and he has just moved to the city to see if he can't accomplish his dreams. He gets a job as an orderly at a hospital and is further supported by an older woman (Helene Vincent), a nurse he has met there, in return for his sexual favors. However, in his acting class, he quickly discovers that he is not overflowing with talent, and his dream of becoming an actor grows dim. Instead, despite the advice of a knowledgeable and worldly older gay man (Philippe Noiret), he becomes a sex worker. It has long been a staple of the movies that certain hustlers and prostitutes maintain a distinction between their work and their lives by not kissing their clients, hence the title of this film, J'embrasse Pas. He grows to love the seedy, degraded lifestyle, and seems to be adapting well to his new profession until he has the poor judgement to fall in love with a high-class prostitute (Emmanuelle Béart) and earns the antagonism of her pimp. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Alice (Sandrine Kiberlain) is a young woman working in a fish cannery in Boulogne-sur-Mer, who feels that her life has come to a dead end. When she is laid off from her job, she decides to pull up stakes, leaving her boyfriend behind and heading to Lyon. While having a drink at a hotel bar, she meets construction worker Bruno (Arnaud Giovaninetti). Like Alice, Bruno feels alone and unhappy with life, and as the two strike up a conversation, each senses that they've found a kindred spirit, and a tentative romance begins to emerge. Sandrine Kiberlain's performance earned her a Cesar Award (the French Oscar) as Most Promising Young Actress of 1996. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A genteel teacher finds himself out of his element when his request to be assigned to a Parisian school lands him in an impoverished, multi-cultural ghetto suburb outside of Paris. There Laurent Monier (Gerard Depardieu) finds himself forced to live in a project apartment and teach classes full of underprivileged, tough and troubled youth. His former spouse is also a teacher, but she got a plumb job in an upscale part of Paris while Laurent -- who moved to Paris to be near her -- struggles to keep his car intact and to stay alive on the dangerous streets. Still, he does his best in the schoolroom and eventually earns the respect of his students. Trouble brews however, when school gossip gets out of hand and threatens to destroy his career. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this satirical French comedy, divorced and unemployed father Henri (Hippolyte Girardot) recruits others who are jobless, evicted, living with parents, surviving on welfare, or staying in shelters. With his core group of the eight unemployed young people, Henri's objective is to form his own political party. One member of the group, however, is Antoine (Gad Elmaleh), head of a successful software firm, who poses as a jobless loser while romancing ex-communist Solange (Florence Pernel). ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

An Algeria born and raised French citizen (known as a pied noir) finds himself forced to choose between his beloved but still war-torn homeland and a new life in Paris after he leaves his olive farm and goes to France for a cataract operation. Georges Montero initially only plans to spend a short time in France to heal and to visit family members who fled during Algeria's war of independence in the early '60s. All those he visits, including an old flame, are still embittered about the war and are deeply concerned about the mass murder of Algeria's artists and intellectuals by Islamic fundamentalists. It is Belka, one of Georges's old friends, who has recently relocated to Paris, who engineers a scheme to keep Georges, a staunch colonialist who does not seem concerned by the bloody tumult back home, in France. While trying to decide what to do, Georges becomes friends with his eye surgeon Tarek, himself an Algerian transplant. In arguing their different positions on the state of their homeland, each makes surprising self-discoveries about just how much Algeria's recent history of unrest has affected them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Fred lives in a housing project outside of Paris with his lover Lisa and her five-year old son. When not working in a factory or being with his little family, he hangs out with his close friend and neighbor Michel. Like the other factory workers, Fred and Michel live humble lives. Unfortunately, the plant shuts down following a workers strike and all 200 workers are suddenly unemployed. Fred is thought to have had something to do with the strike. With no work, he gladly accepts Michel's offer to drive a truck to a certain locale and leave it there. Unfortunately a murder follows this event and Fred is the prime suspect. This causes the hapless fellow to go into hiding while a determined cop looks for him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Rolando Colla made his directorial debut with this Swiss-French-Italian period drama about a Breton woman who disguises herself as a man to join a ship's crew during the 18th century. Rebellious 24-year-old Anne Bruneau (Laurence Cote) is abandoned at the altar by her fiancé Yann (Denis Lavant). Unaware that Yann was drunk and fell down a well, Anne reacts to his absence by cutting her hair, dressing like a man, and signing on with a ship captained by a dwarf (Jean-Claude Grenier). When Yann learns what happened, he begins running south to Marseilles to rejoin her. Aboard the ship, Anne's disguise is discovered by the captain and the ship's doctor (Yann Collette). With an Arab (Roschdy Zem), she jumps ship, hiding with hookers in Marseilles while still maintaining her disguise. The score is based on traditional tunes and gypsy music. Shown in competition at the 1998 Locarno Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Bourlem Guerdjou directed this French-Belgian-Norwegian-Algerian co-production, a drama set in the Paris suburbs during the early '60s. Algerian immigrant Lakhdar (Roschdy Zem) works at a building site and lives in a corrugated metal hut. Since Lakhdar is literate, he helps others send letters home. He misses his wife and children and invites them to come live with him. However, his wife Nora (Fadila Belkebla) is disturbed by life amid the shantytown squalor and becomes politically active. In hopes of moving his family into an apartment, Lakhdar moonlights at a warehouse night job. Shown at the 1998 Venice Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Patrice Chereau (Queen Margot) directed this French drama about a train trip to an artist's funeral. Friends of painter Jean-Baptiste Emmerich (Jean-Louis Trintignant, seen in flashbacks) gather at a Paris railroad station for a four-hour journey to Limoges, where Emmerich wanted to be buried. The dozen travelers include art historian Francois (Pascal Greggory) and his lover Louis (Bruno Todeschini), who develops an interest in teenage Bruno (Sylvain Jacques). Traveling parallel with the train is a station wagon with Jean-Baptiste's body, and this vehicle is driven by Thierry (Roschdy Zem), husband of Catherine (Dominique Blanc), who's on the train with their daughter. Francois plays a taped interview with Jean-Baptiste, revealing his sexual appeal to both men and women. Lucie (Marie Daems) is convinced that she was his main love. Also on board is his nephew, Jean-Marie (Charles Berling) and Jean-Marie's estranged wife, Claire (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi), After the funeral in "Europe's largest cemetery," the storyline continues in the mansion of Jean-Baptiste's brother, Lucien (also played by Trintignant). With hand-held camerawork for almost two-thirds of the film, the production involved two extra cars connected to a real scheduled train, headed one way in the morning and returning in the afternoon, with cast and crew logging some 12,000 kilometers over two weeks. Source music runs the gamut from James Brown to Jim Morrison. The title refers to the dying words uttered by the painter -- which actually are the last words spoken by filmmaker Francois Reichenbach who died in 1993 (and appropriated here by his friend, co-scripter Daniele Thompson). One of Francois Reichenbach's best-known films (and subject of an entire book) is the documentary Medicine Ball Caravan (aka We Have Come for Your Daughters,1971), a curious effort to duplicate the success of Woodstock (1970) by simply inviting a large number of musicians, hippies, and counterculture types aboard a cross-country train and filming the result. Shown in competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Married for five years, Gerard (Patrick Catalifo) and Helene (Dominique Blanc) are at Paris' Orly South airport, where they are planning to take a flight to Buenos Aires to begin a new life in Argentina. However, at the last minute, Gerard informs Helene that he is ending their relationship, and departs for Argentina alone. Helene, distraught, decides to stay at the airport, which has showers and restaurants. When her money eventually runs out, Helene takes a proposition for sex by an older physician (Gamil Ratib) and thus embarks on a new profession as a prostitute. She also becomes stronger and more self-assured, and starts to befriend a number of airport workers, including a stewardess who regularly flies to Buenos Aires and promises to post letters to Helene's family in France. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

A woman's grief and her mother's madness lead to strange and unforeseen consequences in this offbeat drama based on a novel by Ruth Rendell. Betty Fisher (Sandrine Kiberlain) is a promising young writer who has a four-year-old son, Joseph (Arthur Setbon). Betty's mother, Margot (Nicole Garcia), comes to visit her from Spain. Betty's relationship with Margot is difficult at best; Margot is emotionally unstable, and once attacked her daughter with a pair of scissors when she was a child. While spending time with Margot, Betty loses track of Joseph for a while, and the boy is severely injured when he falls out of a window. While Joseph is rushed to the hospital, he never regains consciousness and dies later that day. Betty is understandably distraught, and as she sinks deep in sorrow, Margot snatches Jose (Alexis Chatrian), a boy the same age as Joseph who is the son of Carole (Mathilde Seigner), a waitress with a serious drug habit who often delegates care of her child to her new boyfriend, Francois (Luck Mervil). Margot claims that Jose deserves a better parent than Carole, and she gives him to Betty to care for; while Betty is fully aware of the impropriety of Margot's action, the loss of Joseph has left such a void in her life that she reluctantly accepts the child as a way of dealing with her sadness. Betty Fisher et Autres Histoires was directed by one-time Francois Truffaut associate Claude Miller. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A man goes on a pilgrimage in search of his heritage -- only this time it's an African coming to America in this offbeat drama. Alloune (Sotigui Kouyate) is an elderly man who works at a museum in his native Senegal that is devoted to documenting the history of the slave trade in Africa. Many people come to the museum hoping to learn about their past, and Alloune is equally curious about his own heritage, and his research into his family tree suggests that he had several relatives who were kidnapped and sold to slave traders working out of South Carolina. Alloune decides to visit America to learn more about his kin, and he uncovers documents suggesting his relatives were renamed Robinson by their masters in the U.S. Alloune's research dictates a trip to New York City, so he pays a visit to Hassan (Karim Koussein Traore), a nephew who lives in Harlem and drives a cab. Hassan and his girlfriend Biram (Adja Diarra) let Alloune stay with them in their tiny flat, and while in the neighborhood, Alloune makes the acquaintance of Ida Robinson (Sharon Hope), a sharp-tongued woman who owns a corner store. Alloune believes Ida may be one of his relatives, but he isn't certain, and while he tries to find out for certain, he convinces her to give him a job -- never explaining that he thinks their family trees may be linked. Little Senegal was shown in competition at the 2001 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

After making a living by providing English subtitle translation to numerous French films, American filmmaker Andrew Litvack makes his debut as a writer/director with the Merchant Ivory production Merci Docteur Rey. Set in Paris, this farcical comedy involves the troubles of young gay man Thomas (Stanislas Merhar). First his opera diva mother, Elisabeth (Dianne Wiest), comes for a visit and she doesn't know he's gay. When he accepts a blind date with someone from an online chat room, he ends up witnessing a murder and possibly discovering the identity of his real father. Eventually he ends up telling his story to a therapist, who is instead replaced by unstable voice-over actress Penelope (Jane Birkin). Also includes cameo appearances by Vanessa Redgrave, Simon Callow, Bulle Ogier, and Jerry Hall. Merci Docteur Rey was shown at the 2002 Mill Valley Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide