A worldwide scientific investigation on tsunamis. Thanks to exclusive access in Palu, Indonesia, follow the UN’s hand-picked scientific team of "tsunami hunters". Where do they strike? How do they submerge us? What can we do to survive them?
Louis XIV's ship La Lune was wrecked off Toulon in November 1664. The ship was returning from an expedition to the Barbary Coast with nearly one thousand people on board, simple seamen or nobles of the highest rank. Discovered by a submarine in 1993, the wreck lies in 90 metres of water. In a state of magificent preservation, like some underwater Pompei, she will, starting in 2012, be the subject of an exceptional archeological investigation, bringing together history and robotics, the expertise of archeologists and the passion for the deep.
The film centers on a young French widow and her two adolescent children as they attempt to carve out a meager life for themselves by farming rice fields alongside the ocean in French Indo-China in the 1930s. Their efforts are hampered each year by the presence of the sea, which invariably floods the fields with saltwater and wipes out the crops. In desperation, the mother realizes that their only hope lies in the construction of a sea wall to prevent continued flooding, but the mother must cut a swath through the local bureaucracy in an almost Sisyphean attempt to make this happen. Meanwhile, her obstinate daughter, Suzanne, draws the romantic obsessions of a well-to-do Chinese gentleman, Monsieur Jo. Though he could easily provide a way out, the possibility of a romantic relationship between Jo and Suzanne could just as easily fall prey to local racial prejudices that would damage or ruin the lives of both.
During the Nazi occupation of France as two filmmakers attempt to navigate their careers without compromising their ideals. Facing pressure from the Vichy government, assistant director Jean Devaivre uses his position at the German-controlled studio Continental Films as a cover for his resistance activities, while screenwriter Jean Aurenche uses his wits to keep from being involved in the creation of any collaborationist propaganda.