MONSIEUR HIRE

| 1989 (New Release: 2022) – 80′ – Digitally restored -Thriller, Crime, Drama, Film Noir, Classic.
Written by: Patrice Leconte, Patrick Dewolf.
Based on the Book by: Georges Simenon.
Directed by: Patrice Leconte.
Starring: Michel Blanc, Sandrine Bonnaire, Luc Thuillier, André Wilms, Eric Bérenger, Philippe Dormoy, Marie Gaydu, Cristiana Réali.
Official Selection: Cannes International Film Festival 1989.
Official Competition TAFFF 2022 (International Premiere Digitally restored version).
In French with English subtitles.
A Cohen Media Group release. |

Michel Blanc’s nuanced performance, Patrice Leconte‘s refined visual style, and Denis Lenoir’s moody cinematography are perfectly in sync with George Simenon’s elegant prose in this beautiful adaptation of the author’s 1933 detective novel, Les Fiançailles de Monsieur Hire.  More an in-depth study of loneliness, longing and betrayal than a murder mystery, the film is made up of minute, carefully-observed details, placing its central character — a fastidious, reclusive tailor with an inclination toward voyeurism — under a veritable microscope.  Its telling manages to be simultaneously sensual and austere… and finally, heartbreaking.  Unapologetically romantic, Monsieur Hire is very different from the searing social indictment of Julien Duvivier’s 1946 adaptation of the same story, Panic, or of the original novel itself.  Leconte has chosen, instead, to paint a restrained portrait of vulnerability and unrequited love, set to the lush, rhapsodic phrases of Brahms Piano Quartet in G Minor.

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ONLY THE ANIMALS

| 2021 – 117′ – Drama, Thriller, Film Noir
Written by: Gilles Marchand, Dominik Moll, Colin Niel.
Directed by: Dominik Moll.
Starring: Denis Ménochet, Laure Calamy, Damien Bonnard, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Bastien Bouillon.
In French with English subtitles.
A Cohen Media Group release. |

Following the disappearance of glamourous housewife Evelyne Ducat (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) in the French highlands, the lives of five people inextricably linked to Evelyne are brought together to devastating effect as the local police investigate the case. Elegantly structured and darkly funny, Dominik Moll’s seamy thriller reveals the secret connections of a lonely farmer, an unfaithful husband and wife, a lovelorn waitress and an African con artist to expose a world of greed, lust, betrayal, desperation and murder spanning the wintery French highlands to the sun kissed streets of Sierra Leone. With his finest cast to date, including an astonishing performance by Denis Ménochet (Inglorious Bastards), Only The Animals finds Dominik Moll at the height of his filmmaking powers as he masterfully exposes the secret connections that lie at the underbelly of Evelyne’s disappearance.

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BLACK BOX

2021 – 129′ –  Thriller, Film Noir
Written by: Yann Gozlan, Nicolas Bouvet, Jérémie Guez, Simon Moutairou.
Directed by: Yann Gozlan.
Starring: Pierre Niney, Lou de Laâge, André Dussollier, Sébastien Pouderoux, Olivier Rabourdin, André Marcon.
Official Competition COLCOA 2021.
In French with English subtitles.
A Distrib Films US release.|

Following in the tradition of Antonioni’s Blowup or Coppola’s The Conversation, writer/director Yann Gozlan — and an excellent cast led by the ever-impeccable Pierre Niney — crafts a taut, suspenseful intrigue, unraveling the events behind a tragic incident, this time in the aeronautics industry. Matthieu, a brilliant young black-box analyst with an extraordinarily acute ear is charged with investigating a deadly plane crash. Progressively obsessed by inexplicable evidence that doesn’t add up, and spiraling further and further into the realm of paranoia, he gradually loses credibility at the BEA, the bureau that investigates aviation safety in France. So he’s forced to go rogue, risking both career and life, but determined to uncover the sordid truth.

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| 2018 – 84′ – Film Noir / Thriller –
Written by Christian Carion
Directed by Christian Carion.
Starring Mélanie Laurent, Guillaume Canet, Olivier De Benoist, Antoine Hamel.
North American Premiere COLCOA French Film Festival
In French with English subtitles.
A Cohen Media Group release.|

Estranged from his family and now living abroad, dedicated geologist Julien receives a phone message from his ex-wife, Marie, announcing that their 7-year-old son has disappeared while on a camping trip in the woods. Wracked with guilt and desperate to find his son, Julien frantically plunges into that mission with a vengeance. Guillaume Canet gives the film a taut, seething edge, as Julien, and Melanie Laurent is moving as his grieving wife, Marie. Perhaps most compelling is the fact that director Christian Carion devised a plan whereby Canet improvised his scenes, in chronological order, not knowing what was in store for him at each narrative turn — a tactic that injects the thriller with enormous tension and suspense.

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| 1982 / 2018 – 111′ –  Classic – Digitally Restored – Thriller / Film Noir  –
Written by Alain Corneau & George Perec.
Directed by Alain Corneau.
Starring  Patrick Dewaere, Myriam Boyer, Marie Trintignant, Bernard Blier, Jeanne Herviale, Andreas Katsulas.
Official Selection Cannes International Film Festival. 5 Cesar Awards Nominations including Best Actor and Best Screenplay.
In French with English subtitles.
A Film Movement Classics release.|

Trailer

Franck (Patrick Dewaere),  a door-to-door salesman married to Jeanne, is looking for a customer who owes money when he meets Mona, a seventeen-year-old who lives with her rich and hateful aunt. Franck’s wife leaves and his boss has him arrested for embezzlement. But Mona pays back the money and suggests he kill her aunt to get hold of her fortune…. SERIE NOIRE is Alain Corneau’s 1979 adaptation of Jim Thompson’s novel “A Hell of a Woman.”

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| 2014 – 111′ –  Thriller / Crime / Drama / Film Noir
Co-written and directed by Cédric Anger.
Starring Guillaume Canet, Ana Girardot, Jean-Yves Berteloot, Patrick Azam.
Official Selection COLCOA French Film Festival.
In French with English subtitles.
A Kino Lorber release.|

Trailer

Consider the case of Franck Neuhart, aka the “Oise Killer” – a monster that terrorizes a region north of Paris in 1978. He begins by running girls over with his car, young girls, the ones who excite him. He graduates to gunning down hitchhikers at random. He can’t be caught. He is everywhere and nowhere. He is cold, meticulous, brilliant. He is also a policeman. A model officer assigned to solve his own murders. Based on the real-life Alain Lamare, Franck is portrayed by Guillaume Canet in a performance memorable for its chilling understatement. Set in a grainy winter landscape, this matter-of-fact tale walks us through the daily life of Franck without any pretense to psychological insights, focusing instead on the suspense of the situation. The result is a maddeningly tense thriller with a masterful touch.

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| 1957 – 100′ – Classic / Film Noir / Crime / Thriller –
Written by Auguste Le Breton.
Directed by Henri Decoin.
Starring Jean Gabin, Marcel Dalio, Lino Ventura, Magali Noël, Paul Frankeur.
In French with English subtitles.
A Kino Lorber release.|

Razzia Sur La Chnouf is based on a novel by the legendary writer Auguste Le Breton (RIFIFI BOB LE FLAMBEUR) with direction by Henri Decoin (ONE STEP OF ETERNITY) — After a spell in the U.S.A., master criminal Henri Ferré dit ‘Le Nantais’ (Jean Gabin, TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI) returns to Paris and is recruited by Paul Liski (Marcel Dalio, TO HAVE OR TO HAVE NOT), head of a major narcotics ring, to oversee and improve the efficiency of their distribution. Merchandise has been disappearing and unreliable dealers must be eliminated. For the latter, Henri is assigned two hitmen, Roger le Catalan (Lino Ventura, THE SICILIAN CLAN) and Bibi (Albert Rémy, THE TRAIN). Released as RAZZIA in the U.S., RAZZIA SUR LA CHNOUF thrillingly explores the criminal underworld of 1950s Paris.