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Targeted assassinations, bombings, unidentified military attacks are piling up all over the Middle East. Can the "secret war" between Iran and Israel turn into a major regional if not global confrontation?

The two countries are nowadays the two dominant powers in the Middle East. Their conflict is reinforced by the renewed tension between the United States and Iran since President Trump decided to leave the nuclear agreement. Based on unprecedented archival research, access to high profile players in Israel, Iran, Lebanon and the US, the film looks back over the forty years that followed the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Civil war in Syria, to offer relevant keys to understanding the new Middle East.
 
 

SPECIAL MENTION at FIGRA 2021

What do today's teenagers really want? To fit in with a group or to assert their own identity? Perhaps the answer is that different people experience adolescence in different ways.

What do today's teenagers really want? To fit in with a group or to assert their own identity? Perhaps the answer is that different people experience adolescence in different ways.

In Europe, schools operate 5 days a week, but the length of the school day varies considerably, and the timetable is rarely organised around children's energy levels.

In Europe, schools operate 5 days a week, but the length of the school day varies considerably, and the timetable is rarely organised around children's energy levels.

Discover the Myths of the Americas, while driving the iconic Route 66 to California, then on to Cuba, a tobacco eldorado. Or take the Hogwarts Express to Scotland for a dose of magic, ending with Isfahan the One Thousand and One Wonders in Iran.

MYTHS OF THE AMERICAS (26') 
To discover the Myths of the Americas, you just have to drive the iconic Route 66, 400km of freedom and wide landscapes, from Chicago to California, then head for Cuba and its tobacco eldorado appreciated for the cigar.

FANTASTIC TRIPS (26') 
Who has never dreamed of taking the Hogwarts Express to the most famous wizarding school in the world? Direction Scotland, land of haunted castles and mysterious mist between heaven and earth. After a good dose of magic, it's time to escape to Isfahan, the One Thousand and One Wonders in Iran. Colorful domes and resplendent cupolas, which arise from the desert! 

Over the course of a century, these images narrate the thwarted destiny of a pivotal nation, caught between archaism and modernity, secularity and religion, submissiveness and independence, East and West.

A crossroad country, a nation divided, Iran is on the rise after a century of political upheaval. The nuclear crisis has revealed to the world its goal: to become a world power.

For the first time ever, this film will look back over 100 years of Iranian history to the veritable wellsprings of the confrontation between Iran and the western powers.

From 1908 to 2008, from the discovery of oil reserves to the nuclear crisis, we present a spectacular voyage to the heart of a country and a people, a colorful fresco focusing on real-life stories, unveiling archive images and authentic documents, and giving eyewitnesses - Iranian men and women - a chance to speak. A crisscrossing gaze, free of both prejudice and compromise: how they see us, how we see them.

Access has been granted to Iranian national audiovisual archives. Rare footage has also been collected in various sources across Europe, Russia and the United States.

From the American preparations to the capture of Saddam Hussein, this documentary takes a fresh look at the invasion of Iraq through the accounts of Iraqis.

From previously unaired accounts of Iraqis, including former soldiers and leaders, civilians, future insurgents, journalists and opponents in exile, the film retraces, in minute detail, the critical year of the invasion, with as its counterpoint, the tales of members of the US military and reporters who were present during the intervention.
 
In these previously unaired images, we discover US military operations from the inside, but also - and more importantly - scenes of splendour of a dictatorship caught up in lies and unprepared for war.
 
By counterbalancing the official media scenario put forward by the Americans, this documentary provides an understanding of how, from an easy war in the face of a depleted country, the United States found themselves entangled in a civilian insurrection led by a disillusioned people, who they did not even attempt to understand and who they drove to revolt.

It was a 444 days ordeal for the American diplomats taken hostage in Tehran. 444 days of humiliation for the most powerful nation in the world, the United States. Within these 444 days, Iranian Islamists imposed their will on their country and the world.

Rediscover the events of November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981. This defining moment of the last half of the 20th century marked the beginning of the conflict between the United States and its former ally, Iran.

As it unfolds the century-long history of the collapse of the Ottomans, the film offers an in-depth understanding of the impact the process had on the former Ottoman territories, up to the present time. 

For six centuries, the Ottomans had ruled over three continents and seven seas.
On the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, a whole new world was created. That is the purpose of this two-part film: analysing these new lines of fracture in order to remind how the Ottoman past still matters. Without appropriate knowledge and understanding of this page of history, no one could pretend grasping fully the current political, religious and ethnic challenges of our present time – in Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Turkey, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Israel, in Palestine, in Irak…

In order to regain their dignity and self-confidence, Yazidi women are training in self-defense. They are called "survivors". The Daesh threat still hangs over Yazidi society, both through the violence in the camps and the blackmail of women.

Some witnessed the massacre of their people by Daesh in August 2014, others were captured, raped, sold like cattle in slave markets and lived for years under the caliphate's rule.
Long condemned by a rigorous Islam that calls them devil worshippers, the Yazidis - a Kurdish-speaking religious minority - have suffered a massacre from which they are struggling to recover.
6,800 women and children were kidnapped and enslaved by Daesh; 4,000 have been found. 2700 are still missing. After the sound of bombs and the media hype, there comes the heavy silence of the lost ones.

With its colored domes and dazzling cupolas, Isfahan rises from the desert. At the center of Iran, it is a city of monumental palaces and many splendors. 

It owes its glory to Abbas the Great, Shah of Persia from 1588 to 1629. An enlightened despot, he led his country into a golden age and made Isfahan its grandiose yet refined capital, the pride of Iran in the eyes of the world.

In Basra, Iraq's second largest city, the damage of the war is still being cruelly felt. Children are paying the heaviest price. The mortality rate is such that there are three children’s cemeteries.

Between 1994 and 2003, the number of malformations increased by a factor of 17, 14 times more than in Nagasaki or Hiroshima. In Nehran Omar, a town of 2,000 inhabitants located 30 km from Basra, the inhabitants are distressed by the incredible number of handicapped children and deaths from cancer.
The use of weapons containing depleted uranium has exposed the local population to radioactive dust that has contaminated the soil, waterways and livestock.
After the bombings, the radiotoxic emanations, the open sewers, the drought, the global warming, the inhabitants also suffer from the noxious emissions of carbon dioxide and benzene generated by the combustion of methane from the hydrocarbon industry. The oil fields are located less than 10 kilometers away from the nearest houses...
The laws supposed to protect the population from the effects of pollution exist, but they are not applied: the oil manna represents nearly 90% of the Iraqi budget.

In Persian, his name means "palace of the flower garden". In the heart of Tehran, the Golestan Palace offers a unique example of Kadjare architecture, one of the great Iranian dynasties. 

Its walls are decorated with ceramics and house the Hall of Mirrors, and for a time, a forbidden dark room.