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Drama

Please note that we stock both DVDs imported from France (region 2), and local Australian releases (region 4). Region 2 DVDs require a multiregion DVD player to be viewed.

Region 4 DVDs are suitable for Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, South America, Central America, Pacific Islands and Caribbean.

SERAPHINE

Rated: PG
Actors: Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur
Director: Martin Provost
Distributor: Rialto
Feature: Original Theatrical Trailer, Image Gallery
Release Year: 2009
Running Time: 125 minutes

Region 4 - In French - With English subtitles

*Winner of 7 French Academy Awards (Cesar Awards 2009)*

The moving true story of a simple housemaid who painted to appease the voice of heaven. In 1913, German art collector Wilhelm Uhde, the first Picasso buyer and discoverer of acclaimed naïve primitive painter Le Douanier Rousseau, rents a modest apartment in Senlis in order to leave behind the excesses of his Parisian life and concentrate on his writing. Once settled, he hires a cleaning lady, the 48 year old Séraphine de Senlis, a quiet and retiring woman with little regard for life beyond her means. But while visiting the home of a prominent local family, Uhde notices a small painting on wood and is surprised to discover that it was created by the unassuming Séraphine. A poignant and unexpected relationship then develops between the avant-garde art dealer and the visionary cleaning lady. Yolande Moreau delivers a multi-award winning performance as Séraphine de Senlis, a simple housekeeper whose brilliantly colourful canvases, to this day, adorn some of the most famous galleries in the world. Director Martin Provost’s fictionalised and tragic portrait of this forgotten painter is a moving and compelling testament to creativity and the resilience of one woman’s unique vision and spirit.

LES MISERABLES

Rated: PG
Actors: Gerard Depardieu, Christian Clavier, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Virginie Ledoyen, John Malkovich
Director: Josee Dayan
Distributor: Umbrella Entertainment
Format: PAL
Release Year: 2000
Running Time: 171 minutes
Region 4 DVD - In English only

Set against the background of early 19th century France, this is the story of Jean Valjean (Gérard Depardieu), an ex-convict who becomes mayor, but is haunted by his past. He meets a beautiful but desperately ill woman named Fantine (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and cares for her daughter Cosette (Virginie Ledoyen) after her death. However Valjean is obsessively pursued by the policeman Javert (John Malkovich) who wants him to account for his past crimes.

COCO AVANT CHANEL

Rated: M15+
Directors: Anne Fontaine
Actors: Audrey Tautou, Benoit Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola
Distributor: Warner Bros
Format: PAL
Release Year: 2009
Region 4 DVD - In French, with English subtitles

From rags to riches to Haute-Couture: the incredible story of Coco Chanel. In a remarkable tour de force portrayal, the lovely Audrey Tautou (Hunting and Gathering, Priceless, The Da Vinci Code) becomes the legendary style icon Coco Chanel. From her humble beginnings at a French country orphanage to the extravagant heights of Parisian society, Chanel's indomitable creative spirit was expressed as a dance hall singer, seamstress, social rebel and fashion icon. Benoit Poelvoorde and Alessandro Nivola portray the men of wealth and elegance infatuated with the multi-faceted Coco Chanel, whose vision and style - inspired by fashion and fueled by passion - paved a daring new way for modern women to look, dress and live their lives.

CHACUN SON CINEMA

Rated: M
Directors: Theodoros Angelopoulos, Olivier Assayas, Bille August, Jane Campion, David Cronenberg, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Atom Egoyan, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Hsiao-hsien Hou, Takeshi Kitano, Roman Polanski
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Format: PAL
Release Year: 2007
Running Time: 110 minutes

Region 4 DVD - In Mandarin, English, French, Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Yiddish - With English subtitles

"Times change. Then they return to their starting point, enriched by their own metamorphoses. When, more than a year go, we asked ourselves how to celebrate the 60th Festival de Cannes, we were sure at least of one thing: no return to the past, deadly commemoration or blissful self-congratulation, nothing which makes the future even more intimidating." GILLES JACOB, Director of the Cannes Film Festival.

Chacun son Cinéma: to each his own cinema. To each his own tale about the most lyrical, emotive and textual of art forms. To celebrate the 60th birthday of Cannes, the world's premier film festival, festival director Gilles Jacob approached 33 of cinema's greatest talents, asking them to make a three-minute short film about the nature of cinema and its place in their lives. 33 individuals—including a pair of brothers—with 32 opinions, stories, characters and visions about the cinema as a whole. At times humourous, sometimes self-referential, often reflective, occasionally sorrowful but all irrefutably significant. A cinephile's dream.

CLEAN SLATE (COUP DE TORCHON)

Rated: MA15+

Actors: Stéphane Audran, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Eddy Mitchell, Philippe Noiret
Director: Bertrand Tavernier
Distributor: Universal Studios Home Video
Format: PAL
Release Year: 1905
Running Time: 128 minutes
Region 4 DVD - In French, with English subtitles

1938, in a French african colony. Lucien Cordier is the cop of this village, populated with blacks and a few whites (usually racialist and lustful). He is a washout, everyone (including his wife Huguette) humiliates him. He never arrests anyone and looks at elsewhere when a dirty trick occurs. But one day, he turns into a machiavellian exterminating angel.

I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG

Rated: M15+
Actors: Kristin Scott Thomas, Elsa Zylberstein
Director: Philippe Claudel
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Release Year: 1905
Running Time: 115 minutes

Region 4 DVD - In French, with English subtitles

Academy Award®-nominee Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient, Gosford Park) gives the performance of her career in the award-winning and critically-acclaimed I've Loved You So Long.

Scott Thomas stars as Juliette, a distant and withdrawn woman with a hard shell. After a long spell away, Juliette returns to live with Lea (Elsa Zylberstein), the sister she has not seen for 15 years, and her busy family. After a cautiously happy reunion, the two siblings slowly start to rebuild their relationship, and Juliette does her best to carry on with the everyday?searching for a job, looking after her gorgeous nieces, swimming with her sister at the local pool. But Juliette has obviously been through an extremely traumatic experience, and her silence makes fitting into her new life difficult for all involved.

Everyone has questions.

Just where has Juliette been all this time, and what has she been doing? As her secrets start to be revealed, the enormity of the events in Juliette's life begin to take hold and threaten to devastate her life all over again.

FEMALE AGENTS

Great New Price!

Rated: MA15+
Actors: Moritz Bleibtreu, Julie Depardieu, Deborah Francois, Marie Gillain, Sophie Marceau
Director: Jean-Paul Salome
Distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment
Release Year: 2008
Running Time: 117 minutes
Region 4 - In French, with English subtitles

1944: a crucial moment in the Second World War The mission: a five-woman commando unit must eliminate the head of German counter-intelligence in Paris At stake: the Normandy Landings A five-woman commando unit parachutes into occupied France on a daring and dangerous mission to protect the secret of the D-Day Landings and eliminate Colonel Heindrich, the head of German counter-intelligence. Louise is a trained sniper and the widow of a Resistance leader. Jeanne is a tough hooker who won't hesitate to kill. Gaëlle is a young and brilliant explosives expert desperate to see some action. Suzy is a stunning former showgirl and Heindrich's one-time lover. Maria is an Italian contessa undercover with the French Resistance. Female Agents is an action-packed tribute to the real-life espionage operatives whose exploits inspired the film.

THE BEAT MY HEART SKIPPED

Format: DVD Video (PAL)
Genre: Movie-Foreign
Label: PALACE
Release Date: 19/03/2008
Rated: M15+
Actors: Niels Arestrup, Gilles Cohen, Romain Duris, Jonathan Zaccai
Director: Jacques Audiard
Region 4 DVD - In French, with English subtitles

A Moody, intense and memorable study of a young man torn between two very different worlds.

Tom is 28 and destined to follow in his father's footsteps in the sleazy and sometimes brutal world of real estate. But a chance encounter leads him to believe that he can become, like his mother, a concert pianist, In earnest, he starts preparing for the audition with a virtuoso Chinese pianist. She doesn't speak a word of French; music is their only exchange. But pressures fromt he ugly world of his day job soon become more than he can handle.

AN OLD MISTRESS

Genre: Movie-Drama
Label: DIRECTORS SUITE
Country Of Origin: FRANCE
Release Date: 3/12/2008

Encoding: Region 4 - Suitable for Australia, New Zealand

Rated: R18+

In French with English subtitles

Set in 1835 - the century in which LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES was penned - AN OLD MISTRESS is a Parisian tale of lust, longing and the torments of passion. Victomte de Prony, a dapper aristocrat, loves nothing more than to observe and comment upon the romances of his similarly aristocratic social circle. One day, de Prony pays his friend Vellini (Asia Argento) a visit, armed with some rather disturbing information: her lover Ryno de Marigny is set to marry another woman. While de Marigny is well-connected, his financial standing is dire, thus leading to his betrothal to the young, wealthy Hermangarde. In spite of her lover's engagement, Vellini is convinced that the decade-long sexual bond she has shared with de Marigny is strong enough to override any marriage and, through a series of flashbacks in which their affair is exposed, director Catherine Breillat whimsically comments upon the age-old divide between love and passion.

PERSEPOLIS

Label: ROADSHOW HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Rated: M
Actors: Simon Abkarian, Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni
Directors: Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi
Format: PAL
Release Year for the film: 2007
Running Time: 96 minutes
Country Of Origin: FRANCE
Release Date: 5/03/2009
Region 4 DVD - In French with English subtitles

"Persepolis" is the poignant story of a young girl in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. It is through the eyes of precocious and outspoken nine year old Marjane that we see a people's hopes dashed as fundamentalists take power. As she gets older, Marjane's boldness causes her parents to worry over her continued safety. And so, at age fourteen, they make the difficult decision to send her to school in Austria.
Though it means putting on the veil and living in a tyrannical society, Marjane decides to return to Iran to be close to her family. At age 24, she realizes that while she is deeply Iranian, she cannot live in Iran...

THE LIGHT

Encoding: Region 4 - Suitable for Australia, New Zealand
Rated: M15+
Actors: Sandrine Bonnaire, Emilie Dequenne, Gregori Derangere, Director: Philippe Lioret
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Feature: Original theatrical trailer
Audio: French
Subtitles: English
Release Year: 2004
Running Time: 104 minutes

When Antoine (Gregori Derangere) is wounded in the Algerian war in 1963, he relocates to the petite Breton island of Quessant to rebuild his life. Despite inexperience, he wins a job at the local lighthouse, a romantically lonesome citadel in wild seas. The dour locals of the island are none too glad about the handsome stranger's arrival, even less so that he has secured work in the famous lighthouse. But Antoine is beguilingly laidback despite the antagonism and violence directed at him from all quarters. He eventually warms up his crabby and crusty lighthouse mate, Yvon (Philippe Torreton), but is unable to disguise his attractionto Yvon's wife, Mabe (Sandrine Bonnaire).
As sexual tensions between Antoine and Mabe smoulder deliciously, The Light takes flight.

PARIS (CEDRIC KLAPISCH)

Release Date: 30/09/2008
Rated: M
Actors: Juliette Binoche, Romain Duris
Director: Cedric Klapisch
Distributor: Icon Films
Release Year: 2008
Running Time: 130 minutes

Region 4 DVD - In French, with English subtitles

The story begins with Pierre (Romain Duris), a young man unexpectedly confronted with his own mortality. For the next 24 hours, his tour through the city will weave with those of his beloved sister (Juliette Binoche), his neighbours (some known, some not), their friends and workmates, and their interconnected stories of love, familial bonds, loneliness and compassion come together in unexpected ways. This emotional and inspiring ode to Paris will have you entranced.

NEW FRENCH CINEMA - DRAMA

Format: Triple DVD Video (PAL)
Label: MADMAN
Country Of Origin: FRANCE
Release Date: 3/12/2008
Rated: M15+

Region 4 DVD - In French, with English subtitles

HUNTING AND GATHERING - Directed by Claude Berri (JEAN DE FLORETTE, MANON DES SOURCES). Starring: Audrey Tautou (AMÉLIE, PRICELESS, A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT) Guillaume Canet (THE BEACH, TELL NO ONE, NARCO: THE SECRET ADVENTURES OF GUSTAV KLOPP)

AFTER HIM - Starring: Catherine Deneuve (BELLE DE JOUR, INDOCHINE, THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG) Guy Marchand (INSIDE PARIS). Written by Christophe Honoré (INSIDE PARIS, MA MERE)

THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN - Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche (GAMES OF LOVE AND CHANCE, BLAME IT ON VOLTAIRE). Introducing Hafsia Herzi, Winner of multiple Most Promising Actress awards including the Marcello Mastroianni Award, Venice Film Festival 2007.

L'ETOILE DU SOLDAT

RatingL MA15+
Label: REEL
Actors: Sacha Bourdo, Philippe Caubere, Patrick Chauvel
Director: Christophe De Ponfilly
Running Time: 105 minutes
Release Date: 7/08/2008

Region 4 DVD - In French with English subtitles

September 11, 2001. High up in Afghanistan's mountains, Vergos, a French reporter, finds out about the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. He remembers… 1984. Nikolai, a young Soviet musician, is drafted to fight in the war in Afghanistan. Sick with fear, he's engulfed in a world of violence and death. While on a combat mission he is captured by Commander Massoud’s Mujahideen and taken deep into the mountains where the Afghan rebels are taking cover. Although some Mujahideen want Nikolai dead, others feel compassion for him. There he also meets Vergos, who stays with the rebels to document their fight. Against all odds, the Soviet soldier, the French reporter and the Mujahideen gradually become friends … A year later Massoud’s Mujahideen set Nikolai free. Accompanied by Vergos, he embarks on his journey to Pakistan – but his freedom won’t last long…

THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN (LA GRAINE ET LE MULLET)

Label: PALACE
Release Date: 12/07/2008
Rated: M15+
Actor: Hafsia Herzi
Director: Abdellatif Kechiche
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Label: Palace Films
Region 0 DVD - In French, with English subtitles

Lauded at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, and winner of multiple awards at the 2008 Cèsars (the French Oscars®) including Best Film and Best Direction, Abdellatif Kechiche?s The Secret of the Grain is a touching and resoundingly humanistic story set in the rustic port of Sète in southeastern France.
Slimane has worked in the same shipyard job for over 35 years, when his growing dissatisfaction prompts him to try to open his own restaurant. His dream seems unbelievable, but his contagious conviction and persistence work their way into the hearts of his loyal but dispersed family; the four children from his first marriage, his ex-wife, current girlfriend and her bright, outspoken daughter, Rym (played to great acclaim by the stunning newcomer Hafsia Herzi).
A grand film about ordinary people, The Secret of the Grain is a deliciously slow-burning drama about fate, food and family.

THE FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON

Format: Double DVD Video (PAL)
Genre: Movie-Drama
Label: DIRECTORS SUITE
Directed by: Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Country Of Origin: FRANCE
Release Date: 10/09/2008
Region 4 DVD - In French, with English subtitles

From master Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien comes this beautiful homage to Albert Lamorisse's Oscar®-winning children's short film, The Red Balloon and to Paris itself. Seven-year-old Simon is affectionately followed by a mysterious red balloon. His mother, Suzanne, a puppeteer and children's entertainer, is completely absorbed in her new show. As Suzanne strives to balance work and motherhood, the red balloon appears to Simon and his Taiwanese nanny as they journey around modern-day Paris, offering the boy the love and support his mother can't.

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (LE SCAPHANDRE ET LE PAPILLON)

Genre: Movie-Drama
Release Date: 27/08/2008

Réalisateur : Julian Schnabel

Actors: Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze,

Rated M

Region 4 DVD - In French, with English subtitles

The seemingly claustrophobic story of a man imprisoned in his paralyzed body becomes a dazzling and expansive movie about love, imagination, and the will to live. After a stroke, Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric, Kings and Queen) can only move his left eye--and through that eye he learns to communicate, one letter at a time. With the help of his speech therapist (Marie-Josee Croze, Munich) and a stenographer (Anne Consigny, Anna M.), Bauby writes the stunning memoir The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. But such a plot summary makes the movie sound like lofty, self-important medicine--far from it. Director Julian Schnabel (Basquiat, Before Night Falls), working from an elegant screenplay by Ronald Harwood (The Pianist) and with an oustanding cast (which also includes Frantic's Emmanuelle Seigner as Bauby's neglected wife), has created a movie as engrossing and hypnotic as a thriller, a movie that wrestles with mortality yet has stubborn streaks of dark humor and eroticism, that portrays a man who overcomes unimaginable obstacles but refuses to paint him as a saint. Schnabel was once dismissed as a pompous and overblown painter, but he's crafted an intimate visual poem, a humble sonata about life at its most fragile. --Bret Fetzer

JEAN DE FLORETTE - MANON DES SOURCES

Rated: PG

Actors: Emmanuelle Beart, Gerard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil, Yves Montand

Director: Claude Berri

Distributor: Umbrella Entertainment

Release Year: 1986

Running Time: 225 minutes

Region 4 DVD - In French, with English subtitles

Two masterpieces of modern French cinema in one DVD collection! Starring Gérard Depardieu (Green Card), Yves Montand (Wages Of Fear), Daniel Auteuil (Queen Margot) and Emmanuelle Béart (Mission Impossible). Based on the classic novel by Marcel Pagnol, Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources are timeless tales of passion, greed and revenge with beautiful imagery and brilliant performances from the greatest French actors of their generation. Presented here in one special DVD collection, these universally acclaimed films follow the travails of Jean de Florette (Gérard Depardieu) and his beautiful daughter Manon (Emmanuelle Béart) as they play out an epic struggle for survival in the French countryside.

INSIDE PARIS

Rated: M
Actors: Romain Duris, Louis Garrel , Guy Marchand, Marie-France Pisier
Director: Christophe Honore
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Release Year: 2006
Running Time: 92 minutes

Region 4 DVD - In French, with English subtitles

INSIDE PARIS is a beautifully observed family drama starring two of the most exciting and charismatic young actors working in French cinema today. An elegant, deeply felt tale of a family dealing with a son's depression, INSIDE PARIS has been called an homage to the French New Wave.

After splitting up with his long-term girlfriend, Paul (Romain Duris - THE BEAT MY HEART SKIPPED) has moved back into the Paris flat his younger brother Jonathan (Louis Garrel THE DREAMERS, REGULAR LOVERS) shares with their protective, divorced father (played by veteran actor and composer Guy Marchand). Depressed and lethargic, he remains housebound whilst Jonathan a devil-may-care womaniser and the film's narrator - walks the streets of Paris chatting up girls. The emotional interplay heightens with the arrival of the boys' glamorous mother (Marie-France Pisier).

LA VIE EN ROSE

Encoding: Region 4 - Suitable for Australia

Rated: M

Actors: Marion Cotillard, Gerard Depardieu, Jean-Paul Rouve

Director: Oliver Dahan

Distributor: Icon Entertainment

Audio: French

Subtitles: English

Release Year: 2007

Running Time: 140 minutes

From the slums of Paris to the limelight of New York, Edith Piaf's life was a battle to sing and survive, live and love. Raised in poverty, Edith's magical voice and her passionate romances and friendships with the greatest names of the period -Yves Montand, Jean Cocteau, Charles Aznavour, Marlene Dietrich, Marcel Cerdan and others- made her a star all around the world. But in her audacious attempt to tame her tragic destiny, the Little Sparrow - her nickname - flew so high she could not fail to burn her wings.