The best Gilles David’s movies

An aviation magnate takes desperate measures to regain custody of his kids after he is granted minimal visitation rights by a harsh female judge. It's true that Manu Barnes is free-spirited and for much of his twelve year marriage to Mathilde that he has been too centered on his career, but he does love his kids and believes he should see them more often than one weekend a month. The judge called him irresponsible and he decides to disprove her words by kidnapping Chloe, the judge's strong-willed adolescent daughter. He takes the girl to a remote, snow-bound mountain cabin. Unfortunately, she thinks Manu is sexually attracted to her. A disaster nearly occurs there, but Chloe manages to get back to Paris. Though he knows a private detective is trailing him, the determined Manu decides to abduct his kids and take them out of the country.

Paris, sum­mer 2020. Actors from “la Comédie-Française”, France’s most pres­ti­gious the­ater, rehearse Christophe Hon­oré’s new play, an adap­ta­tion of Mar­cel Proust’s “The Guer­mantes Way”. When the show is sud­den­ly can­celed, the dra­ma group decides to go ahead with it any­way, in the name of art and for the joy of act­ing together.

Cyrano has a prominent nose but also a gift with words by which he helps handsome Christian to conquer Roxane. Also in love with the girl he chooses not to reveal to her that every word of Christian comes out of his own heart. In cinema, this ROSTAND classic filmed live from the Comédie Française.

The action is set in Naples, opening a door onto an imagined maritime world stretching towards the Orient. Faced with two authoritarian fathers, two sons, both of whom are thwarted lovers, turn to the crafty Scapin, who is driven by a mad desire for revenge. The character is a double of Scaramouche, the Italian actor of the adventurous life whom Molière admired: “to tell you the truth, there are few things that are impossible for me, when I put my mind to them” declares the buffoonish servant whose name, as Denis Podalydès points out, derives his from the Italian scappare which means “to escape”, “to scamper off”. Scapin is beaten with a stick at one point but also gets his own back and, against a background of ransom demands and paternal contradictions, he comes up with an avalanche of stratagems and other tricks, which Molière excels in depicting.

Alceste loves Célimène, a flirtatious woman from the Parisian high society. He loathes this world for its hypocritical etiquette but, shaken by a public trial he is called to by this social circle, he must visit Célimène to ask for her help…