Elina Löwensohn

The corpse of a woman is found in front of Maria’s apartment window. She agrees to take charge of the funeral, becoming involved in her neighbour’s existence. Maria adopts the woman’s unattended dogs and forms a bond with her estranged son. After the burial, Maria tries to reclaim her own life back, but a haunting feeling lingers.

In the near future where emotions have become a threat, Gabrielle finally decides to purify her DNA in a machine that will immerse her in her past lives and rid her of any strong feelings. She then meets Louis and feels a powerful connection, as if she had known him forever.

Paris, 1894. Who is Fanni, who claims to be voluntarily locked up in a women-only mental institution? Searching for her mother among the multitude of so-called 'madwomen', Fanni discovers a community of modern heroines who defy her expectations, along with the unexpected friendship of fellow patients. The sumptuous and renowned 'Party of Fools' of the asylum is in preparation. Politicians, artists, and socialites will flock to it. It’s her last hope of escaping the closing trap.

While creating SHE IS CONANN, Bertrand Mandico also filmed two short films simultaneously to create an entire "Barbarian Cycle" that brings you deeper into the world that Mandico has created. Presented in this program are: Rainer, A Vicious Dog in a Skull Valley (26min); Apocalypse After (35min); and We Barbarians (27min).

Dragon Dilatation is the union of two filmic essays, Petrouchka and La Déviante Comédie. The first part is a rereading of Stravinsky’s ballet, while the second segment is made up of traces of an unpublished performance rehearsed at the Théâtre des Amandiers.

Road trips through Los Angeles, famous verses in the Poetry Lounge and love in times of the pandemic: Rendezvous with an old flame, fourty years later. After Jaurès (2012), Vincent Dieutre presents another tender autofictional piece in the Forum.

Octavia Foss wants to stage a female version of Conan the Barbarian in the theater. She makes a pact with a dog-headed demon to achieve her goals.

Arrived in an abandoned place or emerged from a society at a standstill, men and women organize themselves in their own way, borrowing what they find on the spot and in the memory of what surrounds them, the theater and the people... In the superb mineral setting of the Boulbon quarry, Philippe Quesne, inspired by a work by the painter Jérôme Bosch, orchestrates a joyful retro-futurist epic to meet the worlds to come, between environmental science fiction and contemporary western.

On the set of a film in the making, four actresses take turns guiding us. They unknowingly drag us into their damnation.

Histoires courtes, the France 2 program, gives carte blanche to Bertrand Mandico who brings together three of his short films here: Rainer, A Vicious Dog in Skull Valley, Nous les barbares and The Last Cartoon.