Menu
© 2026 The Couch Critic
Browse 37 movies from Cinéma Defacto
After studying in Paris, the young doctor François moves to Beauval, where single-family houses are lined up monotonously. He quickly becomes the focus of a group of young people, led by the charismatic Cédric and Matthieu, his assistant. The gang tries to escape their boredom with dangerous games at the edge of the forest. But things become bitterly serious when the body of a twelve-year-old girl is found and François is suspected.
Apr 2011
Layla Fourie, a young single-mother in South Africa, receives a job assignment as polygraphist. In the constant presence of mistrust, lies and fear Layla soon becomes a suspect herself.
Jul 2013
Summer 1944, France. Racine is a carefree 19-year-old first-aid worker, his secret desire is to be able to sleep with Isabelle, the girl he's in love with. One evening they are about to take the plunge, but a resistance fighter comes to ask for help. Racine goes up to the maquis to impress the young girl and joins a group of fifteen immature boys. But up there, nothing goes as planned. The war catches up with them, brutally marking the end of an innocence and Racine finds himself caught in the crossfire.
Jan 2011
A lost cat, a giant talkative frog and a tsunami help a bank employee without ambition, his frustrated wife and a schizophrenic accountant to save Tokyo from an earthquake and find a meaning to their lives.
Feb 2023
Rebecca, the daughter of missionary Lawrence Byrne, was declared a “miracle” after she survived a plane crash as a child, deep in the Amazon Forest. Years later, Rebecca, who became a famous healer in the region, and her father find themselves embroiled in an escalating conflict when illegal loggers invade the land belonging to the indigenous people they are evangelizing.
May 2025
A young woman struggles to overcome lost love, unplanned motherhood and ghostly apparitions.
Jan 2018
The film follows the staging of the opera Olimpiade while at the same time exploring the dramatic life of its composer Josef Mysliveček, a friend and teacher of W. A. Mozart.
Apr 2015
When Belgian tech visionaries Luc and Geert learn that their fraud will hit the papers in less than 24 hours, they realise their company and their status will evaporate. With jail time becoming inevitable, they each go on their separate paths of redemption. As they quietly seek atonement from their investors – their families and the close-knit community, they learn what truly matters.
0
The Way Out tells a story of a young Romani couple, Zaneta and David, the parents of little Janicka. Their efforts to live a decent and dignified life run up against the "Romani social trap," which is racism, the society's prejudices, exclusion from opportunities to obtain legal work, the lack of necessary qualifications, difficult communication with officials, debts and the miserable life conditions connected with the environment, lifestyle and traditional values of their ethnicity. David wants to protect his family, even at the expense of committing a crime. But Zaneta finds inner strength to defy the unfavorable situation in a different way. Will they overcome the existential problems that start to take apart their relationship? Is it worthwhile for them to continue to Honor their own values and family traditions? And will their "way out" be only another "escape" for them, or a promise to change their lives?
May 2014
Dragos Binder is doing research in order to write a fiction film based on the true event of his parents fleeing the country in the 80s communist Romania, but then he changes the subject, moving the camera lens on himself.
Nov 2023
2013. Exiled in Switzerland, Olga, a talented and passionate 15-year-old Ukrainian gymnast, is trying to secure a place in the National Sports Centre. But the Euromaidan revolt erupts in Kyiv, and suddenly her loved ones are involved. While the girl is adapting to her new country and preparing for the European Championships, the Ukrainian revolution makes its way into her life, and nothing will ever be the same again.
Nov 2021
When John returns home to his father after serving time in prison, he is looking forward to starting his life afresh. However, in the local community his crime is neither forgotten nor forgiven.
Jan 2015
Vlada works as a truck driver during the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. Tasked with transporting a mysterious load from Kosovo to Belgrade, he drives through unfamiliar territory, trying to make his way in a country scarred by the war. He knows that once the job is over, he will need to return home and face the consequences of his actions.
Mar 2019
With his wife in labor, father-to-be Thomas (Malik Zidi) speeds to the hospital, and in the process, accidentally kills a young man on the road. That death sets into motion events that will change everyone’s lives forever, including the young man’s mother Marie-France (Nathalie Baye), who cannot recover from the trauma. Nine years later, Marie-France takes a job as Thomas’s secretary without him knowing about her connection to his past. As Marie-France’s maternal rage reaches tragic proportions, she insinuates herself into his life, his work and his family in this classic thriller à la Hitchcock.
Sep 2015
It's early May. Julius, a petty thief, has just been released from prison. The sun is shining, but the prospect of the future in the Teplice suburbs is certainly not warming: What to do? The same gang, will I be selling meth again? I'll be back in jail by winter. On TV, they're talking about some festival in Cannes. Some drunk, not an actor, apparently won an award for a film there and became a star. Sure, I'm going to Cannes! How? Hitchhiking.
Jun 2017
Bologna, 2002. Amidst protests against the labor reform, the assassination of a lawyer opens old wounds between Italy and France. Former far-left terrorist Marco, convicted of murder during the Years of Lead and living in Paris since then thanks to the Mitterrand Doctrine, is suspected of being its instigator. When the Italian government asks for extradition, Marco goes into hiding with his daughter Viola, precipitating also the life of his family back in Italy.
Oct 2017
1999: While NATO was bombing Yugoslavia, a truck containing 53 dead bodies plunged into the Danube near the border with Romania. No enquiries were carried out. Previously, in Suva Reka, Kosovo: Serbian police herd villagers together. A woman experiences terrible things, bodies disappear into remote mass graves. People as little more than mere matter.
Feb 2016
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the Czech provinces, a handful of people come together: a paranoid prison guard, his hypochondriac neighbour and the latter’s silent, despairing wife, a lovesick nightclub manager and a stripper who is a single mum.
Apr 2016
In 1917 Burma (now Myanmar), a British diplomat is set to marry his fiancée, but after a sudden panic, escapes to Singapore, sending her on what evolves into a chase across Asia.
Nov 2024
Sixteen year-old Nisha lives a double life. At home with her family she is the perfect Pakistani daughter, but when out with her friends, she is a normal Norwegian teenager. When her father catches her in bed with her boyfriend, Nisha's two worlds brutally collide. To set an example, Nisha's parents decide to kidnap her and place her with relatives in Pakistan. Here, in a country she has never been to before, Nisha is forced to adapt to her parents' culture.