ARTE Distribution

Oliver Stone is the guilty conscience of an America he never hesitates to expose. The director of Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, and Natural Born Killers sees cinema as a quest for truth bordering on obsession, shaped by two major traumas that have forever marked America: the Vietnam War and the assassination of Kennedy.

He is the complete opposite of African American actors who have become icons of American identity—successful stand-up comedians or action heroes. As the embodiment of Black America—in its violence and on its fringes—he carries the essence of the ghetto, the streets, and the struggle.

Jackson first struggled with addiction before finding his true calling. A survivor of the violent fight against segregation and his own demons, this Tennessee native owes his redemption to cinema and his work ethics. Over the course of a half-century-long career, Samuel L. Jackson has carved out a unique professional path, straddling the line between radicalism and pop culture. From Spike Lee’s socially engaged films to the blockbuster sagas of Star Wars and Marvel, he embodies a rare balance in Hollywood: that of an actor who embraces all genres without ever forgetting where he comes from.

An actress of boundless versatility and unclassifiable talent, Julianne Moore is neither a Hollywood sex symbol nor the quintessential method actress. She has spent the last thirty years exploring the dark side of “femininity” without taboos, transitioning between blockbusters and auteur films.

In the small world of Hollywood, Julianne Moore sets no limits for herself. From The Big Lebowski to A Single Man and Boogie Nights, she has chosen roles considered too risky or unconventional, exploring without reservation realms where moral and emotional boundaries blur. A leading figure in American independent cinema and the 2015 Oscar winner for Best Actress, she remains, alongside Juliette Binoche, one of the few actresses to have won awards at all three major film festivals: the Cannes Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, and the Berlin International Film Festival.

Dive into the heart of 19th-century bustling Paris, following the adventures and destinies of legendary artists such as Hugo, Sand, Berlioz, Balzac, etc. These intrepid young souls shook conventions with their words and brushes. This one-of-a-kind animated series reveals the deepest secrets of these romantic heroes. Their fights still resonate in today’s world.

Entirely told in traditional 2D animation, this series recounts the story of literary and artistic Paris between 1824 and 1870. The protagonists Hugo, Berlioz, Chopin, Delacroix, Courbet, Baudelaire, Balzac or Dumas… Young intrepid artists, eager to awaken society and break the rules using all means at their disposal, whether it’s paintbrushes, pens or guns. Their crossed destinies are incredibly romantic and their fights terribly relevant.

James Dean, who died at 24 after only 3 films, remains a timeless icon. He redefined masculinity by embracing his vulnerability and his flaws, becoming an anti-hero and a symbol of freedom, inspiring generations even 70 years after his death.

Through his distinctive personality and the three films he starred in, Elia Kazan's East of Eden (1955), Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Georges Stevens' Giant (1956), James Dean created breaches in Hollywood rigidities, and helped reinvent masculinity in a more flexible way. His screen presence, marked by vulnerability and rebellion against classic masculine norms, introduced a less rigid male model. Dean, a modern man of many facets (he was openly bisexual), challenged conventional portrayals of manhood, becoming an icon of sensitivity and complexity. His unique contribution has had a lasting influence on the perception of masculinity, establishing a new ideal of the emotional, conflicted man, far removed from the unfailing heroes of yesterday. 

From Edward Scissorhands to Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp is one of the most talented actors known for his eclectic and unconventional film choices. Discover the man behind the Hollywood icon.
 

Perhaps because the actor's life seems straight out of a movie where death, love, drugs, motels, palaces, Marlon Brando and Iggy Pop are all part of the ensemble. These multiple layers, sometimes contradictory, are found in his most iconic interpretations: often poetic and always offbeat anti-heroes: genuine American anomalies.

This documentary series tells the story of intimate and tumultuous love stories in the context of art history. With Amedao Modigliani and Jeanne Hébuterne, Lee Miller and Man Ray or Gerda Taro and Robert Capa.

Love story is an excuse to narrate the lives of artists, their neuroses and narcissism, and to confront them to their alter ego, the other, their double.
Each of the couples of this collection answers the same questions: is love compatible with creation? Can artists reveal themselves through romantic passion? Does love bring a renewed energy to Art?

The rise and fall story of a troubling and fragile actor who would eventually get recognition for his talent. The case of Mickey Rourke is a real turning point in the way men have portrayed themselves in American cinema. 

How did Mickey Rourke, a beloved actor of the 80's who played the motorcycle boy in Rumble Fish, the crusading cop in Year of the Dragon and the cursed investigator in Angel Heart, turned so quickly into the ultimate persona non grata, a sad, tabloid-accustomed bad boy, a failed boxer and a living illustration of the excesses of plastic surgery? This film offers, beyond the classic story of a fall and a possible redemption, to draw the complex portrait of a fallen sex symbol who became an icon of trash by the force of representation of the Hollywood system.

Two times winner of the Palme d'Or, Ken Loach is one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers. This documentary shows in a punk and rebellious tone how Loach uses cinema as a political tool that allows to advocate for the advent of a more just society, by raising viewers' awareness.

Thanks to an exclusive and exceptional access to all the director's professional and personal archives, this documentary deciphers his work and the Ken Loach method: to make cinema a political weapon thanks to realistic films that move people. As a humanist, Ken Loach never stopped fighting against the implementation of neoliberalism at the end of the 70s with Margaret Thatcher coming to power in Great Britain. This apostle of subversion has twice won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his films The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016). Now 86 years old, the tireless Ken Loach enters the production of his new feature film, The Old Oak, scheduled for release in 2023.

This film offers you the opportunity to learn about the composer's life through his letters, his handwritten notes and the testimonies of great musicians and artists of our time. 

Through writing and music, this film offers an intimate approach to Beethoven's life and work: discover the struggles of a man who never gave up.
Beethoven's correspondence and diaries make for a unique material. It sheds a light on the composer to reveal a side of him that has never been seen before. His temperament, his struggles, what he admired, what he hated, how he lived his life... Most of these precious writings are rarely talked about.

Yasmina Khadra's story is anything but ordinary-it is an epic tale. This best-selling author, whose early novels are set during the Algerian civil war in the 1990s, is not, as one would imagine, a woman.

His real name is Mohammed Moulessehoul, a former Algerian army officer who fought against the rise of Islamist extremism that plunged his country into a bloodbath. He spent his sleepless nights writing novels that were published under a pseudonym composed of his wife's first two names. Structured as a road movie between Algeria and France, this documentary takes us on a journey through the work of Yasmina Khadra, the author's complex personality and his life, which is inextricably tied to the history of Algeria since its independence.

Cary Grant, one of Hollywood's greatest stars, was troubled most of his life with self-doubt and insecurity due to childhood trauma. In his fifties he began a long course of treatment, taking LSD to exorcise his demons. 

Using words from his unpublished autobiography, and newly-discovered personal footage he shot with a film-maker’s eye, Cary Grant explores his long journey from childhood poverty to global fame, and from darkness out into the light. In this film we discover for the first time a different Cary Grant, the man behind the mask of subtle charm and suave sophistication that he wore to hide his insecurities. This is a story of a man in search of himself, on a quest to find the love that eluded him most of his life.
 

2018: Selected at the ARTFIFA - Festival international du Film sur l'Art. 2017: offical selection at the International Film Festival of Edinburgh (Scotland); Cannes Classic Selection at the International Film Festival of Cannes (France).