Films with: Gourmet, Olivier

Enfant The child /

When a small-time crook and his young girlfriend have a child, he decides to sell the baby for money. When his girlfriend finds out, she goes into shock. While she recovers in the hospital, he tries to get their son back and redeem himself.

DVD 4509

Fils The son /

Oliver is working as a carpentry instructor in a French suburb. He develops an obsession with a new student and offers him friendship and advice with a frightening lack of affection. Oliver's connection to the boy is slowly and painfully revealed.

DVD 3033

Promesse

The life of a fifteen-year old changes forever when he makes a promise to a dying man.

DVD 1304

Quand la mer monte-- When the sea rises /

Irene, an actress, travels from one small town to another with her one-woman show in rural-industrial northern France. Things change when a scooter-driving vagabond fixes her stalled car. What develops is a remarkably natural and tender affair.

DVD 9059

Rosetta

The Belgian filmmaking team of brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne turned heads with Rosetta, an intense verite drama that closely follows a poor young woman struggling to hold onto a job to support herself and her alcoholic mother. It's a swift and simple tale made revelatory by the raw, empathic way in which the directors render Rosetta's desperation, keeping the camera nearly perched on her shoulder throughout.

DVD 9266

Sur mes lèvres read my lips /

Carla works in a real estate office and has a hearing problem. Carla makes the acquaintance of Paul, a small-time criminal who has just been released from prison on parole. Before long, it becomes obvious that Paul is having an influence on Carla's normally stable nature. Carla and Paul's actions go from malicious to seriously criminal when Paul hatches a scheme to rob a nightclub owner to whom he owes money -- a scheme that involves Carla's keen skill as a lip reader.

DVD 1764

Violette

Violette LeDuc is one of the foremost French writers of the twentieth century. In a beautifully mounted production, director Martin Provost depicts LeDuc's extraordinary life, from her low beginnings as the illegitimate daughter of a servant girl to becoming ensconced in France's literary elite. Violette LeDuc is determined, obsessed even, to make something of her life. Writing is her ticket out of misery, and with the encouragement and mentorship of Simone de Beauvoir, she achieves renown.

DVD 10741