Luisa — Now and Then

At 32, Luisa encounters her 15-year-old self in this sentimental and bold story about self-acceptance and sexuality.

A disillusioned photographer has a chance encounter with her lost teenage self who has miraculously traveled into the future. Together, both women ultimately discover who they really are, finding the courage to live life by being true to themselves. Luisa’s sexuality is revealed to be a defining element of her identity, one which both of her selves must come to terms with. A time-traveling love story that turns coming-of-age conventions upside down, Luisa is a universal queer romance for the modern age.

Drama, Humanoids

The White Sultana

This is the story of two women. One of those women is Lady Sheringham, interviewed in her manor house, the other is Emma Piggott, who has just passed away in her London apartment, alone.To the former, life has been kind. She’s gone from Shanghai to Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpar, from governess to sultana. She lives in the lap of luxury, engaged in an endless cycle of drinks parties, outings on horseback and the delicious little scandals of the British colonial community. This is a woman destined never to know hardship, other than the loss of loved ones.Emma Piggott, a teacher at St. John’s, has lived a gray and stagnant life, experiencing Asia only through newspaper articles that she carefully cuts out collects, but never leaving the Whitechapel neighborhood where her parents kept a grocery store.And yet, something unites these two women–a little detail, nothing at all really, mere chance, or perhaps just a nightmare that troubles Lady Sheringham’s sleep from time to time…

Drama, Europe Comics

The World Book of Records

Egg-balancing, hotdog-eating, baton-twirling—these are a few of the records people try to break in order to find themselves included in the World Book of Records. For those who make into the book, Paul Baron, a judge at the publication, is a hero. For others, whose dreams he denies, he’s a villain. After one man’s plan to achieve renown is destroyed, Paul learns that the man may have lost everything else, but he hasn’t lost hope—the hope of joining other record-breakers in the book. But the record the man hopes to break is terrible, and Paul unfortunately has a role in his project.

Drama, Europe Comics

While the King of Prussia Was Waging War Who Do You Think Was Darning His Socks?

Mrs. Hubeau looks after her 40-year-old handicapped son, Michel. Despite many happy moments, her daily life is far from easy, but she faces it with unparalleled courage and generosity. This is a beautiful homage to all the admirable people fighting in the shadows.

Drama, Europe Comics

Yallah Bye

July 2006. Gabriel El Chawadi says goodbye to his family at the Paris airport as they leave for their summer vacation in southern Lebanon. But a conflict at the Israel-Lebanon border escalates into a full-blown aerial attack, and for the next few harrowing weeks, the family hides for cover with friends and relatives, watches helplessly as people and buildings are destroyed all around them, and hope against all hope that France will evacuate them to safety. Back in Paris, Gabriel watches the events unfold on television with growing horror and sends out desperate calls for help to anyone who will listen.

Drama, Europe Comics

You Can’t Just Kiss Anyone You Want

A little boy tries to kiss a little girl. No big deal. The little girl gets away and sends the little boy packing. Nothing more than an anecdote amongst many others of any normal childhood. But if this event takes place at school in a Socialist republic, half way through a propaganda movie, years before the wall is even showing the slightest sign of giving out… Well, it’s asking for trouble. This is the story of two children in a society in which paranoia and obsessive control mean that even the most innocent gesture can be blown completely out of proportion.

Drama, Europe Comics, Russia

The Perineum Technique

JH meets Sarah on a dating site. They connect on a regular basis and bring each other to mutual on-screen orgasm. Their exchanges, brief and solitary, eventually obsess JH, who tries to convince Sarah to meet him in person. A strange game of seduction is established between them that compels JH to meet the one sexual challenge – abstinence – that might set something into motion with Sarah. This story is a loose and contemporary variation on the theme of seduction and the emergence of love during this time of hyperconnectivity. Playing skillfully with sexual metaphor and the deafening presence of what is implicit but never spoken, Florent Ruppert and Jérôme Mulot invite us to follow them into a maze of games of love and chance.

Drama, Europe Comics, Romance

Modern Speed

Modern-day Paris. One night, as she’s leaving rehearsal, Lola, a young dancer, is approached by Renée. She introduces herself as a writer, and asks Lola if she could share her life for a while in order to gather material to write a book about her. Despite not feeling entirely comfortable with the idea, Lola accepts. The very next day, Lola and Renée experience the strangest day of their lives, involving an absent father who reappears at random points throughout the book, a bashful but psychopathic admirer, Omar Shariff, and a huge spider… All this is set against a backdrop of a general power cut, a highly demanding dance class and a very rainy day. In the world of today, where everything goes too quickly, twenty-four hours is sometimes enough to change your life.

Drama, Europe Comics

Object Lesson

At the age of 8, Jean-Pierre is leading a blossoming life, subject to the rhythm of nature, in a village that provides enough stories and space to feed his child’s imagination. There is the church in the middle of the village – the monument to the dead. A single primary school class, an authoritarian and mustachioed teacher, fights between boys, and slaps from conceited little girls. Jean-Pierre is in love with his mum, as all little boys are, and extremely admiring of his dad, his champion, who is not around enough. This is the year that Jean-Pierre discovers life and how cruel and merciless it is: his parents split up. For this new story, the author tackles a difficult period experienced by the child Jean-Pierre, in an almost autobiographical way. A modest and deeply moving tale.

Drama, Europe Comics

Second Generation. The Things I Didn’t Tell My Father

This is an autobiographical tale in which Michel Kichka goes back over the significant moments of a childhood, an adolescence, and a life overshadowed by the Holocaust, from Belgium to The Promised Land, from nightmares to funny anecdotes, moments of joy and liberation.

Drama, Europe Comics