Les Films du Bilboquet

Originally there was a silence. That of Malek, the filmmaker’s father, who for years said nothing of his childhood in Algeria. And then, the need to break the silence, with a script that he gives to his children, to start telling his story. Several years later, the father and daughter finally make the journey to Mansourah, his native village: seeing his house, meeting other men who experienced the same heartbreak. Little by little, the film reveals what Malek, like many others, has long kept quiet about.

Refusing to pay for the debt, two Athenians decide to leave their city. Guided by mysterious crow calls, they wander through a desolate urban landscape until they reach a zone of passage and are spirited to an ancient forest, the Realm of the Birds. Here they meet the Hoopoe, half-bird half-woman, who tells them how the birds live by sharing their resources amid the magical forces of the forest. However, one of the men has other plans for the birds. Though far from easy, the inter-species encounter will be illuminating for all.

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.

Victoria travels back in time to understand what defines her as a woman and is confronted with the unresolved grief of losing her friend Méril. As she shares her pain and the memories of her surgery with Athena and Aamina, who now stand where she once stood, the three of them begin a journey to face the ghosts of the past and search for a better future.

The implantation of African traders in Guangzhou is a recent phenomenon, on which Marie Voignier reports through her interlinking portraits of Jackie, Julie, Shanny who have come to set up their business on site. Amidst the monstrous accumulation of merchandise on the endless markets of the megacity, the film follows these African businesswomen grappling with the globalised Chinese economy.

Libreville, Gabon, Africa, 2016. Christ Olsen Mickala, a young boxer, trains tirelessly during the day and earns his living by night as a bouncer in nightclubs. At the same time, the combat of the presidential elections is taking place. As Christ hopes to succeed, a whole country hopes that a democratic transition finally triumphs.

In the heart of a Corsican forest at night, a woman dreams of hunting. After killing, as she looks into the eyes of dead wild animals, she can see faces. Those of people who in real life are about to die. This is an ancestral gift that was passed on to her, and comes from the depth of the island. Even though today, no one seems to care about her visions anymore. Because she is a wild woman. A Mazzera... There is only this one shepherd who is still paying attention.

Vikken is transgender. He’s about to take hormones for the first time. He records his voice that will disappear, and summons the figures of the past from all over the world for an intimate dialogue with himself.

Dimitri loves photographing friends, strangers, lovers. Over the years, images have slipped away from his sight. Behind his camera, he gathers light and bodies, inviting us to gaze toward the hidden face of the Earth.

Just outside Paris, in a peaceful clearing surrounded by woods, a French flag flies above a bare concrete pad. Here, on February 21, 1944, Nazi occupiers executed 23 Resistance fighters by firing squad. After the executions, the Nazis highlighted many of the murdered fighters on a notorious red poster, labelling them as foreigners, communists, and Jews. 23 FOREIGNERS — OUR BROTHERS tells the stories behind some of the faces on that poster, exploring their lives through archival photos, letters they wrote on the eve of their deaths, and moving interviews with their descendants.

This is the final year of the Master’s program at the prestigious dance school École des Sables. These students, who have come from all over Africa, give themselves “body and soul”, drawing on their aspirations, memories, and doubts, to earn their diploma and, above all, the blessing of “the mother of modern African dance.”

Elitza Gueorguieva films the making of the novel that her Belarusian alter-ego Aliona begins about her father, a maritime adventurer, physicist and dreamer, who disappeared off the Turkish coast in 1995.

Reviving the traces, yellowed by time, of a life carefully filed away in archives; giving body to one of 20th century Poland’s most beautiful poetic voices; building a memorial and a vibrant tribute in the most rigorous and masterful documentary tradition… These are the promises kept by Not all of me will die. Zuzanna Ginczanka was shot in 1944, at the age of 27, just as she was gaining recognition in Polish literary circles.