Camera Lucida

A documentary on American marching bands with a background of the 2008 presidential election.

Go inside the building that has been the source of some of the greatest moments in music, ballet and opera.

Making full use of Drottningholm Theatre's unique 18th-century baroque theatre machinery, as well as his deep creative understanding of the profound drama of the work, stage director Pierre Audi creates a production of ZOROASTRE that completely accords with the spirit of Rameau. True to the form of the tragedie lyrique, choreographer Amir Hosseinpour's dances perfectly match the weight and meaning of both plot and music. The ensemble, Les Talens Lyriques, reinforced with musicians from the Drottningholm Court Theatre Orchestra and Chorus, is expertly and passionately led into the musical stratosphere by musical director Christophe Rousset. This intensely dramatic production is captured live in vibrant High Definition video and true surround sound.

Opera in three acts by Christoph Willibald Gluck, Hector Berlioz's version (1859)

In this video essay, Alex Vuillaume-Tylski explores the unique ways in which Agnès Varda opens and closes her films from the entirety of her career.

During the 1930s, photography took over magazines. The modern press was invested. It needed to attract and inform and an image speaks louder than words. Under these influences, fashion photography, advertising and photojournalism were really born. Roger Schall was part of this new generation of photographers, which moved from a fashion photo to a major feature with their eyes wide open. His career in the 1930 perfectly illustrates this movement. How did Roger Schall see this optimistic world as it became more humane and then soon had its dreams shattered? His pictures can tell us a lot, not only about the period and its contradictions, but also of course about how photography was practiced at that time…

Accompanied by a child, the mathematician Galileo observes the firmament with a telescope. Ten years ago, the philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned in Rome for having supported the idea of an infinite and centerless universe, based on the work of Copernicus. By dint of observations and calculations, Galileo seeks proofs for his hypothesis of a cosmic system where the Earth is "an ordinary celestial body, one among thousands". From Padua to Venice, the mathematician shakes certainties by confronting the power of a Church which wishes to maintain its absolute power in the "crystal spheres" where Ptolemy has hitherto locked up the world.

Melody Gardot performs her new album Sunset in the Blue, from the Radio France studios accompanied by a trio of musicians and 40 instrumentalists from the in-house orchestra.

A young woman, Antonia, returns to her island of birth, Corsica, after one of her relatives has disappeared at sea. She is torn back and forth between her old love Ettore and the dumb Alexander. The quest for Antonia's place in the masculine environment of armed nationalism is an excuse for all kinds of peregrinations in the spectacular landscape of Cap Corse - a landscape that itself becomes a leading character.

Founded in 2012 by Laurence Equilbey, the Insula Orchestra performs on period instruments and experiments with new concert formats. In summer 2018, the French conductor and her ensemble will present a little-known work by Mozart at the Parisian cultural center La Seine Musicale: the incidental music to "Thamos, King in Egypt". In 1773, the author Tobias Philipp Freiherr von Gebler asked his fellow Freemason Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to compose incidental music for his heroic drama "Thamos, King of Egypt". The boy wonder composed two choruses and five interludes for the play, which took up the Egyptian theme popular in the 18th century.

10-year-old Ellie is fascinated by nature and birds, she spends her time reading about them. One day, a few miles from school, she goes onto a little island on the Loire River to take a bird book back to the library. It's an island full of birds.

Under the baton of Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra performs works by Lili Boulanger, Romualdas Gražinis and Anton Bruckner.

Goethe's masterpiece set to music by Jules Massenet can be rediscovered on stage at the Opéra Comique, conducted by Raphaël Pichon and directed by Ted Huffman.

At the end of 2013, the year that marked the 50th anniversary of Francis Poulenc’s death, his gripping and moving operatic masterpiece, Dialogues des Carmélites was staged in Paris by director Olivier Py with a cast featuring some of France’s finest female singers – Patricia Petitbon, Véronique Gens, Sandrine Piau and Sophie Koch – under the baton of Jérémie Rohrer. Le Figaro described the production as “a thing of wonder,” while Le Monde called it: “A masterpiece ... the most exciting and consummately achieved show to have been seen on a Parisian stage in a long time … This was great work, magisterial and unforgettable.” “The memorable Dialogues des Carmélites at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées marked the climax of commemorative activities for the 50th anniversary of Poulenc’s death,” wrote Opera magazine of the production of Poulenc’s gripping and moving opera that was staged by the French director Olivier Py in Paris in December 2013.

Atomic Park is a place in the White Sands desert (New Mexico), not far away from Trinity Site, where the first atom bomb exploded in 1945. This national park provides an ambivalent landscape, as well suited for a picnic as for ballistic tests. A white desert, like a natural exhibition hall every movement can provoke diverse interpretations. Like a faint echo we hear Marilyn Monroe's desperate monologue and accusation about man's violence from The Misfits (1961). - Torino Film Festival