Athens International Film Festival
aiff
  • Λουί Μαλ: Les Fleurs du Malle

    Filmography (selected)
    1990 Milou en Mai
    1988 Au Revoir les Enfants
    1981 My Dinner with Andre
    1980 Atlantic City
    1974 Lacombe, Lucien
    1971 Le Souffle au Coeur
    1963 Le Feu Follet
    1958 Les Amants
    1958 Ascenseur pour l' echafaud

  • Elevator to The Gallows

    An illicit couple. A seemingly perfect crime. A desperate night in Paris. Suffocating suspense, fatal romanticism, Jeanne Moreau's aristocratic beauty and Miles Davis' now legendary jazz soundtrack converge in Louis Malle's claustrophobic debut, an emblematic film noir which breathed new life in the genre, forever leaving its mark on French cinema.

  • The Lovers

    To stave off the ennui of domestic life in the countryside a young wife treats herself to trips to Paris and an affair with a sought-after bachelor, until her meeting with a young archaeologist turns her life upside down in a single night. The film, which shocked the conservative morals of its time with its liberated depiction of female sexuality, establishing Louis Malle as the poet of forbidden sensuality and Jeanne Moreau as a timeless sex symbol, is a splendidly shot adult fairy tale about love as an invincible driving force, capable of standing up to any social convention. Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

  • The Fire Within

    An alcoholic, self-destructive author wanders around Paris for a day, striving to reconnect with old flames, friends and acquaintances, and desperately trying to find a reason to stay alive. The first of the many masterpieces by Louis Malle is an unbearably melancholic, yet charming ballad for those who feel like they don't belong anywhere. Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

  • Murmur of the Heart

    14-year-old Laurent is growing up in 50s France, smothered by his Italian mother's affection, ignored by his father and teased by his older brothers. He tries to discover the world, lose his virginity and rebel. Louis Malle reformulates the adventure called adolescence with rare tenderness, a disarming sense of humour and a guilt-free stance on taboos, presenting one the most beautiful coming-of-age stories ever told on screen and causing a scandal because of an incest scene. Nominated for Oscar for Best Screenplay.

  • Lacombe, Lucien

    In 1944 France, 18-year-old Lucien asks to join the Resistance - when he is turned down, he joins the Gestapo instead. Drunk on power, he will find himself at a crossroads when he falls for a Jewish girl. In one of his masterpieces and one of the first films openly addressing the collaboration of some French citizens with the German occupiers, Malle calmly sketches the complex psychological profile of the most ambivalent character in his filmography and that of an entire country under the threat of being divided.

  • Atlantic City

    An aging small-time crook gets a chance to make the illusions of a glorious past come true, when he takes part in a stolen drugs heist and falls in love with a younger woman. Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon have never been better as the mismatched lovers on the run from the Mafia, the past and the dream of a better future, and Louis Malle directs his own unconventional version of a gangster film and one of the better-hidden masterpieces of the 80s. Golden Lion of the Venice Film Festival and five Oscar nominations.

  • My Dinner with Andre

    Can a single conversation change your life? Two old friends from the theatre world meet in a New York restaurant for the first time after many years and Louis Malle turns their dinner into an unforgettable cinematic experience. A deeply philosophical, unexpectedly gripping and revealing film about love, death, and the small and great joys in life.

  • Au Revoir Les Enfants

    In a catholic boarding school in German-occupied France, the initial competition between two 12-year-old boys turns into a strong friendship, but a dangerous secret threatens to blow everything sky high. The French auteur returns home to tell a very personal and painful story of friendship, betrayal and loss, in a deeply moving masterpiece about the definitive end of innocence. Golden Lion and four more major awards at the Venice Film Festival, and an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay.

  • May Fools

    When the matriarch of the Vieuzac family dies, the family members meet in the French countryside for her funeral - a perfect excuse to bring old quarrels back to life and invent a few new ones over the inheritance. Observing their erratic behaviour with a subtle sense of humour, under the shadow cast by the world-shifting events of May `68, and getting a wonderful lead performance out of Michel Piccoli, Malle orchestrates a refined comedy-farce about the end of an era and the deceitful calmness of an idyllic past, just before everything is upended.