Mario Ruspoli, Prince of the Whales 2011

Colleagues, friends and specialists pay tribute to the filmmaker Mario Ruspoli in a portrait that mixes encounters, archive images and film excerpts. With testimonies from Richard Leacock, Albert Maysles, Edgar Morin, D.A. Pennebaker and others.

Strangers of the Earth 1992

Les inconnus de la terre starts like a traditional feature film: in the beginning of the film all the leading roles are given a short introduction. This is followed by a number of interviews, in which the makers unashamedly appear themselves. They include an interview with a lonely shepherd and one with three unmarried brothers who try to run the parental farm for better or worse. Notwithstanding the fact that this mode of interviewing has now become classical, les inconnus de la terre works rather refreshingly. The film is more than just an enumeration of problems. In an honest way it shows the ties of those involved to the land and to nature, in addition to being a plea for the modernization of French agriculture.

Three Cheers for the Whale 1972

Three Cheers for the Whale chronicles the history of mankind’s relationship with the largest and most majestic of marine mammals, and graphically exposes their slaughter by the fishing industry.

Method 1 1963

In 1962, in the small town of Marvejols, young technicians from the RTF are trained to what can and should be direct cinema. “Liberate the camera, be able to throw it into the human space, into life.”

A Look at Madness 1962

The daily life of patients and the work of doctors, including Dr. François Tosquelles, at the psychiatric hospital of Saint-Alban in Lozère.

Les hommes de la baleine 1958

In a small fishermen's village in the Azores, an enormous whale is being jointed, carved and stocked. Once this task is over, the whalers ready themselves for another hunt, a fascinating but trying and dangerous experience...

Era lei che lo voleva! 1953

The Unfaithfuls 1953

A group of "respectable" people are all partly responsible for the suicide of a servant girl. They are pounced upon by a wily blackmailer, who knows that these people will pay dearly rather than inform on themselves or others.