Why are we still able, today, to view images that were captured over 125 years ago? As we enter the digital age, audiovisual heritage seems to be a sure and obvious fact. However, much of cinema and our filmed history has been lost forever. Archivists, technicians and filmmakers from different parts of the world explain what audiovisual preservation is and why it is necessary. The documentary is a tribute to all these professionals and their important work.

Director Hüseyin Tabak explores the legacy of Yilmaz Güney — political dissident, convicted murderer, and visionary Kurdish filmmaker — who directed the 1982 Palme d'Or–winning Yol from inside prison and died in exile just two years later.

An account of the extraordinary life of film pioneer Georges Méliès (1861-1938) and the amazing story of the copy in color of his masterpiece A Trip to the Moon (1902), unexpectedly found in Spain and restored thanks to the heroic efforts of a group of true cinema lovers.

A document of Perestroika, to be viewed as (nearly) unedited rushes of a voyage to Moscow, preserved by compatriot Costa-Gavras. Says Émilie Cauquy of the French Cinémathèque, "Astonishing unpublished travel diary, shot by Chris Marker in analog video on the occasion of a screening of L'Aveu in Moscow in 1990 [...] Armed with his camcorder, Marker films and records the comments, takes on the role of contemporary capital according to this unique ethnographic method that he has perfected".

18 years after his last film, (The Troubles We've Seen), Marcel Ophuls emerges from retirement as one of our last masters, the most corrosive, the funniest as well. And the most forceful. The director of The Sorrow and the Pity shares with us stories of his exceptionally rich life in this light-hearted yet bitter escapade though the century and the movies. Son of the great Max Ophuls, he is generous in his admiration. We also meet Jeanne Moreau, Bertolt Brecht, Ernst Lubitsch, Otto Preminger, Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick and of course François Truffaut. There are no great filmmakers without a memory, so here is the memory shop of Marcel Ophuls.

This is the story of a cinema adventurer, but also that of a free man with convictions. The entertainer Jacques Perrin is constantly driven by a thirst for knowledge, sharing, and encounters, and he constantly challenges himself. In doing so, he reveals his unwavering zest for life...

To honour the 40th anniversary of her death, multiple personalities share their feelings and thoughts about the life and career of the fabulous and bold actress Romy Schneider. Among them, Alain Delon, icon of French cinema and Romy's first great love, reads her the love letter which he wrote her forty years ago, the day after she passed away.

Fatou Cissé accompanies her father, malien director Souleymane Cissé, through a trip down his film career, painting an intimate and poetic picture of one of Africa’s most celebrated actors.

On February 22, 1986, Bette Davis received an honorary César award – and presented one to the Cinémathèque française, which was then celebrating its 50th anniversary. Two days later, Costa-Gavras, president of the Cinémathèque, in turn welcomed the actress for a press conference at which she vividly recounted the heyday of old Hollywood.