To Live, To Die, To Live Again

A young single father trying to find the strength to love. A feminist librarian, single by conviction, who’s decided that she won’t be a mother. A six-year-old child trying to find a place in a new family structure. By revealing their aspirations, their fears, their choices, Carine Tardieu depicts different ways in which humans create families.

Thomas, a blasé young man, spends his nights in clubs and his days in bed. Until his father, Dr. Reinhard, fed up with his son’s escapades, cuts him off completely and forces him to take care of one of his young patients. Mar- cus, 12, was born with a serious congenital disorder. He lives with his mother in the poor suburbs of Paris and spends his days either at the hospital or in a center for sick children. This encounter will disrupt their lives and change them both, profoundly and forever.

Lia, a retired teacher from Georgia, learns from her young neighbor, Achi, that her long-lost transgender niece, Tekla, has crossed the border into Turkey. In search of Tekla, Lia travels to Istanbul with the unpredictable Achi, where they explore the hidden depths of the city.

In Mumbai, Nurse Prabha's routine is troubled when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a spot in the city to be intimate with her boyfriend. A trip to a beach town allows them to find a space for their desires to manifest.

Barbie, once an attractive, devoted mother and partner, faces newfound challenges as she turns 55, descending into darkness, violence, and absurdity while grappling with her identity, relationships, and life's complexities.

In the year following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, young journalist Claude Baechtold finds himself in the war zone of Afghanistan. Not entirely voluntarily, the avowed anti-militarist is dragged by two fearless reporters on a round trip through the entire country.

Émilie lives in a world of surveillance: her camgirl work; the camera phone lingering on a crush from afar; the headset affording her a drone’s perspective. The same drone that stalks each move she makes, offering inspiration, noting rivals. An unsolicited companion is conspiring with or against her. A financially strapped transplant now living in the Paris suburbs, Émilie is thrust into a high-powered world when she is chosen for a renovation workshop with a prestigious architect. Her classmates come mostly from “filthy rich” backgrounds, like cocky Olivier, who wants Émilie as his conquest. But Émilie has shy eyes only for self-sufficient Mina, whose music builds like a “helicoid.” A drone—unlike any known model—is watching her all along waiting for her next move and paying handily for the privilege.

A gifted young dancer arrives in New York City and joins the downtown contemporary dance world. With talent to burn, he soon must choose between his responsibility to his broken family in the Midwest, and forging a life and career for himself.

Sofiane, the son of a former Algerian diplomat, has travelled a lot. Having moved to Lyon for his studies, he is the victim of an administrative decision and lives under constant threat of deportation. In the hope of regularising his situation, he agrees to work for a Muslim funeral parlour. Between parties, encounters and his job, Sofiane finds himself on a journey of initiation that will lead him to build his own identity and gradually move towards adulthood.

When 43-year-old hairdresser Suze Trappet finds out that she's seriously ill, she decides to go looking for a child she was forced to abandon when she was only 15. On her madcap bureaucratic quest she crosses paths with JB, a 50-year-old man in the middle of a burnout, and Mr. Blin, a blind archivist prone to overenthusiasm. The unlikely trio set off on a hilarious and poignant helterskelter journey across the city in search of Suze's long-lost child.

A former Marine confronts corruption in a small town when local law enforcement unjustly seizes the bag of cash he needs to post his cousin's bail.

After a shipwreck, an intelligent robot called Roz is stranded on an uninhabited island. To survive the harsh environment, Roz bonds with the island's animals and cares for an orphaned baby goose.