La cité médiévale de Rocamadour

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

The Bapst Brothers: Romain, Maurice and Jacques – whom we will also meet in The Gruyere Chronicle (produced in 1990) – are peasants and carriers and work with their father. In autumn and winter, they bid for the community’s wood, cut down the pine trees and bring down the logs through the snowy woods by horse-drawn sleigh.

In a valley in the Ukrainian Carpathian forest lies the small and forgotten town of Königsfeld. In 1775, the Habsburg Queen, Maria Theresa, sent a hundred foresters and their families here from the Austrian west of the kingdom. All that remains today of the now over two century-old timber industry are factory ruins, potholes in the valley road and an increasingly seldom heard German dialect. Only a few factories survived a flood that cut the village off from the rest of the world, and left it economically isolated. An atmosphere of farewell hangs heavy in the air.

"Jeunesse Rouge" is a documentary exploring young French Communist revolutionaries fighting for a just and equal society. The film follows their organizing and mobilizing, while delving into the history of the Communist movement in France. Archival footage and interviews with activists show their passionate commitment, from protests and strikes to political education. It highlights the power of youth activism and their potential to bring about change in the face of systemic inequality.

Village Raiders go up Mount Olympus || Gone Wrong 😱 || Gone Wild 🐺 || Gone Silly 🤡

This documentary charts 20 years of the French national soccer team, Les Bleus, whose ups and downs have mirrored those of French society.

For nine months in 1930, seven Bretons, lobster fishermen, were "forgotten" on a volcanic island by their employers, Normans from Le Havre, heirs of the last French whalers. Four employees would die on the spot. Their descendants today revive the memory of this human tragedy which also struck 42 Madagascans. Starting from a sordid social conflict, the documentary shows that the “Forgotten Saint Paul” mark the end of an era of “colonization”, a term rarely used for the French Southern Territories, but nevertheless close to reality. This is the story of the Third World, as its discoverer, Yves de Kerguelen, named it.