Carla (Emmanuelle Devos) is a long-time employee of a property development company. Hard-working and well-informed, she’d like to move up the ranks, but her own timidity, due largely to a serious hearing problem, always holds her back. Into her life walks Paul Angeli (Vincent Cassel), a completely unskilled trainee who’s just been released from jail. He is assigned to work with Carla, who quickly learns to use him to channel her own aggression and ambitions; meanwhile, he finds a way to make her a player in his own plots for revenge. Audiard’s fascinating, emotional mano a mano observes Carla and Paul as they continually circle one another, both seeking their own advantage, yet being drawn ever more deeply into the other’s world.

Winner of César Awards for Best Actress and Screenplay.

Set in France as the German occupation comes to an end in 1944-45, A SELF-MADE HERO offers a wry view of just how easy it was to fabricate a past in the confusion of the times. Mathieu Kassovitz plays an inventive young man who—having missed the chance to be a hero in the war—appropriates the true stories of others, creating a new identity as a member of the Resistance. His deceit brings him honor, admiration, friendship, power, and love, which attests to the truth of his worldview: “The best lives are the ones we make up.” The entertaining and intelligent script won a well-deserved Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. “Firstly, what lies are we talking about? The little man who lies to answer back or a whole nation that lies to itself because the truth is simply unbearable?”—Jacques Audiard.

Frenchman Malik El Djebena, part Arab, part Corsican, is condemned to six years in prison. Nineteen years old, unable to read or write, he appears younger and more fragile than the other convicts. Cornered by the leader of the Corsican gang currently ruling the prison, he is given a number of “missions” to carry out to toughen him up and gain the gang leader’s confidence. Malik is a fast learner and rises up the prison ranks, all the while secretly devising his own surprising plans. “Audiard’s rich thriller is elegantly structured, arresting in its detailing of a little-known subculture, filled with fascinating characters, and gripping from beginning to end.”—Film Comment.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, this year’s French submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and winner of the César for Best French Film.