In a Catholic boarding school during the Nazi occupation of France, Julien Quietin, played by Gaspard Manesse as the character based around Malle, is no ordinary student, he is intelligent and different from the others. A new student arrives at the school one day and becomes a sort of intellectual rival to Julien, but, after some early hostilities, the boys begin to connect and eventually become good friends. Malle does not rely on overly dramatic sequences where not necessary as a way to build find out more...

A thirteen-year-old girl is drafted in as a substitute teacher in a small, isolated mountain village in rural China. When one of her poverty stricken pupils elopes to the city to try and earn some much needed readies she is determined to follow him and bring him back. Shot in verite style using real people, not actors, this heart-warming audience pleaser won the prestigious 1999 Golden Lion at the Venice film festival. find out more...

Altman's highly acclaimed and superbly directed mish-mash of Raymond Carver's short stories. We flit between numerous characters and their strange, confusing, moving and emotive daily lives. The range of emotions, and the incredibly cynical humorous touches brilliantly deconstruct American life. find out more...

In the first and third acts of "Still Life" we follow labourer Han, who is searching for his runaway wife and daughter, and in the middle section we follow middle-class Hong as she looks for her lost husband. Set in the old village of Fengjie, a small town on the Yangtze River slowly being destroyed to make way for the Three Gorges Dam project, the film portrays the lot of ordinary people, predominantly migrant labourers, lost in an ever changing world. Superb use of photography helps make dir find out more...

A highly acclaimed and influential account of Algeria's turbulent past made in psuedo-documentary style. The tense plot surrounds the rise of nationalist organisations in '54 and the French government's attempts to quell them. This film was the prototype for most political thrillers of the 1970s. find out more...