| 2021 – 104′ – Documentary –
Written and Directed by Julien Faraut.
Official Selection FIPADOC Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
A KimStim release.|

Trailer

How did a group of humble factory workers become a phenomenal sports success story and the pride of an entire nation? Julian Faraut’s (JOHN MCENROE: IN THE REALM OF PERFECTION) ferociously innovative and visually stunning THE WITCHES OF THE ORIENT tells the tale of the Japanese women’s volleyball team’s thrilling rise, unbelievable 258 games winning streak, and eventual Olympic gold at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
United by their jobs in a textile factory, the Japanese women’s volleyball team chased absolute perfection under the guidance of their grueling coach Hirofumi Daimatsu. His methods were so tough that in Japan, he was known as “the Demon,” with his intense, endless practice sessions,  shaping the team into a force to be reckoned with. While the west viewed Japan as an alien upstart in the postwar years, it didn’t prevent the team from striking fear in the hearts of their competitors, earning them the racist and dismissive moniker “oriental witches.” Less an underdog tale than a saga of overwhelming determination that simultaneously subverts and feeds an orientalized mystique, THE WITCHES OF THE ORIENT conjures the tenor and tone of the team’s grip on the imagination of an entire nation seeking renewal and acceptance on the world stage of the post-war era. Faraut’s sparkling documentary uses fantastic manga and anime sequences, such as Attack no 1 (1968), with archival footage of blood-curdling matches, intense training sessions (driven by rhythmic editing and great music from French musician K-Raw) with testimony from the now-octogenarian teammates. The result charts the Witches’ meteoric rise without losing their overwhelmingly vital spirit. The joy of the Witches’ success is infectious and offers a hopeful prelude to the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games. The film is available on COLCOA VIRTUAL CINEMA the same week of its release in France. 

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| 2017 – 90′ – Documentary – A Spain/France co-production –
Written and Directed by José Luis López-Linares.
Nominated Best Documentary Goya Awards.
In English and in Spanish, French, Madarin, Portuguese with English subtitles.
A Film Movement release.|

Trailer

A mystery within a mystery, the painting “The Garden of Delights” is the most famous and intriguing work by Hieronymus Bosch. In 2017 the world celebrated his 500th anniversary. Through unique exclusive access granted by the Prado Museum – such as witnessing the processes of X-raying and restoring the painting – the film explores and seeks to unveil all the unanswered questions about the painter himself and the painting, as well as to explain the inspiration that it has had in writers, painters, and musicians from all over the world. The film includes such notable figures as Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie, Renee Fleming, William Christie, Philippe de Montebello, Ludovico Einaudi, Michel Onfray and John Eliot Gardiner.

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| 2016 – 107′ – Documentary –
Written and Directed by Raymond Depardon.
In French with English subtitles.
A Distrib Films U.S. release.|

Trailer

After JOURNAL DE FRANCE (also available on COLCOA VIRTUAL CINEMA) legendary filmmaker-photographer Raymond Depardon delivers a unique picture of France today. Tender, moving, powerful – a film that will reveal the country’s intimate side. “I am going to drive through France, from the north to the south. I plan to stop in front of homes, places of business, and municipal buildings. I am going to meet the people of France, to listen to what they have to say. I won’t ask questions. I’ll let them take their time, gather their thoughts and talk as they will. I will invite people I have only just met into a mobile studio to talk, without constraints, with absolute freedom.” -Raymond Depardon

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| 2014  – 218′ –  Documentary –
Written and Directed by Claude Lanzmann.
Official Selection Cannes International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival. Cesar Award Nomination (Best Documentary).
In French and German with English subtitles.
A Cohen Media Group release. |

Trailer 

1975. In Rome, Claude Lanzmann filmed a series of interviews with Benjamin Murmelstein, the last President of the Jewish Council in the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia, the only “Elder of the Jews” not to have been killed during the war. A rabbi in Vienna, following the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, Murmelstein fought bitterly with Adolf Eichmann, week after week for seven years, managing to help around 121,000 Jews leave the country, and preventing the liquidation of the ghetto. 2012. Claude Lanzmann, at 87 – without masking anything of the passage of time on men, but showing the incredible permanence of the locations involved –exhumes these interviews shot in Rome, returning to Theresienstadt, the town “given to the Jews by Hitler”, a so-called model ghetto, but a ghetto of deceit chosen by Adolf Eichmann to dupe the world. We discover the extraordinary personality of Benjamin Murmelstein: a man blessed with a dazzling intelligence and a true courage, which, along with an unrivaled memory, makes him a wonderfully wry, sardonic and authentic storyteller. Through these three periods, from Nisko in Poland to Theresienstadt, and from Vienna to Rome, the film provides an unprecedented insight into the genesis of the Final Solution. It reveals the true face of Eichmann, and exposes without artifice the savage contradictions of the Jewish Councils.

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| 2015 – 80′ – Documentary – A Franco-American co-production.
Co-Written by Kent Jones and Serge Toubiana.
Directed by Kent Jones.
Starring Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Wes Anderson, Olivier Assayas, Arnaud Desplechin, Peter Bogdanovich, James Gray, Paul Scharader, Alfred Hitchcock, François Truffaut.
Official Selections: Cannes International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, San Sebastian International Film Festival.
In English and in French with English subtitles.
A Cohen Media Group release.|

In 1962, Hitchcock and Truffaut locked themselves away in Hollywood for a week to excavate the secrets behind the mise-en-scène in cinema. Based on the original recordings of this meeting—used to produce the mythical book Hitchcock/Truffaut—this film illustrates the greatest cinema lesson of all time and plummets us into the world of the creator of PSYCHO, THE BIRDS and VERTIGO. Hitchcock’s incredibly modern art is elucidated and explained by today’s leading filmmakers: Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Arnaud Desplechin, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Wes Anderson, James Gray, Olivier Assayas, Richard Linklater, Peter Bogdanovich and Paul Schrader.

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| 2016 – 95′ – Documentary / Environment  –
Co-Written by Jacques Perrin, Jacques Cluzaud and Stephane Durand.
Directed by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud.
Starring Elena Ayana.
In French with English subtitles.
A Music Box Films release.|

Trailer

After traveling the world alongside migrating birds (WINGED MIGRATION) and diving the oceans with whales and manta rays (OCEANS), Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud return to more familiar ground: the lush green forests and megafauna that emerged across Europe following the last Ice Age. Winter had gone on for 80,000 years when—in a relatively short period of time—the ice retreated, the landscape metamorphosed, the cycle of seasons was established, and the beasts occupied their new kingdom. It was only later that man arrived to share this habitat, first tentatively as migratory hunter/gatherers, then making inroads in the forest as settled agriculturalists, and later more dramatically via industry and warfare. With its exceptional footage of animals in the wild, Seasons is the awe-inspiring and thought-provoking tale of the long and tumultuous shared history that inextricably binds humankind with the natural world.

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| 2020 – 103′ –  Documentary – New-Zealand-France Co-production –
Written and Directed by Justin Pemberton and Thomas Piketty.
Based on a book by Thomas Piketty.
Starring Thomas Piketty, Francis Fukuyama, Joseph Stiglitz.
In English and in French with English subtitles.
A Kino Lorber release. |

Trailer

Based on the international bestseller by rock-star economist Thomas Piketty (which sold over three million copies worldwide and landed Piketty on Time’s list of most influential people), this captivating documentary is an eye-opening journey through wealth and power, a film that breaks the popular assumption that the accumulation of capital runs hand in hand with social progress, and shines a new light on today’s growing inequalities. Traveling through time, the film assembles accessible pop-culture references coupled with interviews of some of the world’s most influential experts delivering an insightful and empowering journey through the past and into our future.

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The post CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY appeared first on The American French Film Festival in Los Angeles.

| 2018 – 84′ –  Documentary –
Written by Eric Roux and Gilles de Maistres.
Directed by Gilles de Maistres.
Starring Alain Ducasse, Massimo Bottura, Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron, Francois Hollande.
Official Selection COLCOA French Film Festival.
In French with English subtitles.
A Magnolia Pictures release. |

Trailer

What makes virtuoso chef Alain Ducasse tick? How did that little boy who grew up on a farm in southwestern France become an innovative, sustainability-conscious culinary master, with 23 restaurants across the globe, 21 Michelin stars and three cooking schools to his name? Gilles de Maistre endeavored to find out, following his fascinating subject to the four corners of the earth for almost two years, in his indefatigable search for perfection. And if this film offers any rationale for Ducasse’s brilliance, it is certainly his endless curiosity, humanity, energy and passion for learning, sniffing, tasting, and eking out the most exquisite of ingredients and flavors. Gorgeously shot for the big screen by the director himself, this absorbing documentary offers a veritable smorgasbord of vicarious delights.

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| 2017 – 94′ –  Documentary -,
Written and Directed by Agnès Varda and JR.
Starring Agnès Varda, JR, Jean-Luc Godard
Official Selection Cannes International Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, New York International Film Festival. Academy Award Nomination for Best Documentary. Winner César Award Best Documentary.
In French with English subtitles.
A Cohen Media Group release.|

89-year old Agnes Varda, one of the leading figures of the French New Wave, and acclaimed 33 year-old French photographer and muralist JR teamed up to co-direct this enchanting documentary/road movie. Kindred spirits, Varda and JR share a lifelong passion for images and how they are created, displayed and shared. Together they travel around the villages of France in JR’s photo truck, meeting locals, learning their stories and producing epic-size portraits of them. The photos are prominently displayed on houses, barns, storefronts and trains revealing the humanity in their subjects, and themselves. A Worldwide acclaimed documentary, FACES PLACES documents these heart-warming encounters as well as the unlikely, tender friendship they formed along the way.

Opening on 5/14

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| 2015 – 114′ – Documentary –
Written by Verane Frediani and Franck Ribière.
Directed by Franck Ribière.
Starring Yves-Marie Le Bourdonnec.
Official Selection COLCOA French Film Festival, Winner Best Documentary Award.
In French with English subtitles.
A Kino Lorber release.|

Trailer

The stakes are clear when documentarian Franck Ribière and preeminent Parisien butcher Yves-Marie Le Bourdonnec set off on a journey around the world to reveal what it takes to make the cut in the evolving marketplace of ultra high-end beef. Our two bons vivants visit the newest players in the industry, from Argentina to the famous Kobe ranches in Japan – where cattle are massaged in Saki to the soothing sounds of classical music – ranking their steakhouse Top Ten as they go. This engrossing and unapologetic search for the meat-eater’s holy grail fills the screen with enough sizzling porterhouse porn to leave herbivores weak at the knees. But Ribière, whose family raises prized Charolais cattle, is careful to remind us what it takes to manage livestock responsibly in the age of mass food production, and to show that those world-class cuts are not only the result of highly passionate chefs, but also the most humane ranching practices.
Both informative and utterly tantalizing, STEAK (R)EVOLUTION is a must-see for any steak enthusiast.

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