Rome Paris Films (France): 3

Line of Demarcation (1966) is a war drama film written and directed by Claude Chabrol. It is based on the memoir Mémoires d’un agent secret de la France libre et La Ligne de démarcation by Gilbert Renault. A small village in the Jura is divided by the river Loue, which serves as the boundary between occupied France and the free zone. A French officer named Pierre finds his chateau transformed into a German command center after being released by Nazi soldiers. While he must cooperate with the enemy, his wife Mary is ...

Adapted from Pierre Lesou’s novel of the same name, Jean-Pierre Melville’s French crime film Le Doulos (1962) follows Maurice Faugel as he reconnects with his friend Gilbert, who is appraising jewels from a recent heist. Eager to plan a robbery, Maurice enlists the help of Silien and Rémy. In a twist, Maurice ends up using Gilbert’s own gun to kill him and steal the jewels and a large sum of money. It turns out that Gilbert had killed Maurice’s girlfriend Arlette years ago to prevent her from talking to the police while Maurice was in prison. As ...

Léon Morin, Priest (1961) is a French drama film helmed by director Jean-Pierre Melville. The story is based on Béatrix Beck’s award-winning novel The Passionate Heart. Set during the Occupation of France, the film follows Barny, a single mother residing in a small town in the French Alps with her daughter France. To make ends meet, Barny works as an assignment corrector for a Parisian correspondence school that has relocated to their town. Grief-stricken by the loss of her Jewish husband in the war and lacking sexual satisfaction, she finds herself drawn ...