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Marjane Satrapi: The Passing of a Free Conscience Between Iran and the West

With the passing of Marjane Satrapi, the world of arts loses far more than a talented graphic novelist or an acclaimed filmmaker. It loses a unique voice that, for more than two decades, embodied the often-challenging dialogue between East and West, between the memory of exile and the enduring hope for freedom.

Cinema | Charlotte Gainsbourg Faces the Pyre of the New Inquisitors

There had to be a culprit. And as always, the new commissioners of virtue have found their scapegoat: Charlotte Gainsbourg. She is accused not of acting badly, not of betraying cinema, but of refusing to lay down her arms in the ideological cloakroom. She is forbidden from wearing the lawyer’s robe of Gisèle Halimi because she has not signed the “pure ones’” manifesto on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Here is the new rule: only those who believe may act, only those...

Cinema | Muganga, the man who heals women

“Muganga – The One Who Heals” retraces the fight of future Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr. Mukwege. In the heart of Central Africa, Denis Mukwege advocates and treats, at the risk of his life, thousands of women who are victims of sexual violence and mutilations. His meeting with Guy-Bernard Cadière, a renowned Belgian surgeon, would breathe new life into his commitment. Together, they would operate, four hands at once, so that these women could regain dignity and hope.

France | The odious anti-RN clip by the “rappers of fear”

They have taken hostage the beautiful rallying cry of the Spanish Republicans during the civil war from 1936 to 1939: “No pasaran” (“They shall not pass”). That's the title a score of rappers dared to give to an infamous video intended to mobilise against the National Rally. Under the guise of calling young people to their duty as citizens, these brilliant artists, anxious - they tell the gogos - to “get back to the essence of rap”, pour out ten...

Exclusive | Salman Rushdie: “Words stronger than the knife”

20 months after a 33-year-old fatwa issued against him by Ayatollah Khomeini in February 1989, accusing him of blasphemy against Islam in his novel The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie is back. Stronger and more alive than ever. And, good news, he has lost none of his legendary sense of humour.

Cannes Film festival | “The zone of interest” by Jonathan Glazer: The “banality of evil” transposed to Auschwitz!

Many films dedicated to Nazi horror and the Holocaust have been welcomed, celebrated and rewarded by the Cannes Film Festival. There was, in particular, the tragicomic ‘‘Life is Beautiful’’ by Roberto Benigni (Grand Prix - 1997), the moving and masterful ‘‘The Pianist’’ by Roman Polanski (Palme d’Or - 2002 ), the dark and poignant ‘‘White Ribbon’’ by Michael Haneke (Palme d’Or - 2009) and the atypical and dazzling ‘‘The son of Saul’’ by Laszlo Nemes (Grand Prix - 2015).

Cinema | 76th Cannes Film Festival: The Palm of suspicion and guilt!

At the end of a selection marked by a majority of films dealing with the duality of suspicion / guilt, the Palme d’Or at the 76th Cannes Film Festival went to ‘‘Anatomy of a Fall’’, a French family drama which dissects the mechanisms of suspicion (and the resulting guilt) weighing on a wife after the (accidental?) defenestration of her husband.