Malgré tout

Not all love stories are made equally. Some take decades to blossom, seeming almost to go in reverse. Such is the case for Zeno, a 60-year-old PhD student and nomad bookshop owner, and Ana, a freshly retired mayor, mother, and wife. After years of popping in and out of each other’s lives, crossing paths but never quite able to grab hold, their impossible but unshakable love may just have one last chance to flourish, before the final curtain…

Drago and Camilla seek vengeance for the assassination of their father, Don Molina, by exterminating those of their species who choose to enslave the human race rather than feed on them. But mankind has become an endangered species, following the great hunts of the southern continents. Should they be saved from extinction? Yes. Humans are ignorant, greedy and selfish, not to mention that stench they give off, but they have an interesting history… And so it is that a new law comes into play; a law protecting the increasingly small human race.

Nero dreamed of it. Lucius Murena did it: burning Rome. However, to atone for his act, the young patrician tries to save as many human lives as he can. Everyone, whether they be rich or poor, is seeking a way out. While some throw themselves into the river Tiber, others manage to get to the Campus Martius, although not without difficulty. One of the few areas spared from the devouring flames is the Christian neighborhood. More man than god, the emperor is consumed with doubt. While Rome’s destruction kindles greed in some, it reveals great kindness in others.

Jazz Maynard is a virtuoso trumpeter and a skilled burglar. As kids, he and his partner-in-crime, Teo, had to learn the laws of the street in El Raval pretty quickly. Jazz tried to get away from it all by going to New York, but his dark past eventually caught up with him. And now his unparalleled skills as a burglar are called for once again, this time by Judas, mafia boss of El Raval and Jazz’s childhood friend. Judas has blackmailed Jazz into accepting the job by threatening his sister’s life. Judas knows full well that Jazz is the only one who’ll be able to get to the rare and highly prized “Double Eagle” coin, currently in the possession of a fearsome Romanian crime boss. But there are strange forces at work, and Jazz comes up against some unexpected competition…

The young Britannicus is dead. Poisoned, just like his father, the Emperor Claudius. The will that could have put an end the Nero’s ever-growing ambitions has been reduced to ashes. Nero remains alone on Rome’s throne. Well, almost alone. Somewhere in the shadows lurks his mother, Agrippina, and she’s willing to do whatever it takes to get a bite of that rotten fruit we call ‘power.’

Charlie is a solitary white mouse who dreams of someday being able to write.

But despite of yearning, Charlie has a problem: he finds himself staring at a blank sheet of paper.

Frozen with anxiety, he sits as if paralysed before his task. Nothing comes out of his pen… Charlie needs inspiration. That’s when a little bird named Mr. Solitude appears. Solitude will push Charlie, trapped in is own bubble, and urge him to overcome his doubts and fears.

“Bulles et nacelle” is a dream-like fairy tale about that solitude which engenders the desire to create. It is a poetic exploration of dreams and the tumult they create.

It’s all kicking off in this action-packed series from Marini and Smolderen: Car chases on the intercontinental highway; struggling for survival during the global cooling; the coronation of a young Russian tsar; the resurrection of a Mongol army tracing the footsteps of Genghis Khan; a multinational superpower controlling all terrestrial transport… and right in the middle of all that, there’s the man who goes by the name of ‘Gypsy’, a loveable tough-guy truck driver.

Valentine is a secondary-school student like many others. Her daily life is filled with all the upheavals and self-questioning of adolescence. Self-conscious, she tries to assert herself within a group in which she is “the shy one”. She spends most of her time with her girlfriends, at school or at parties on the weekend. She also tries desperately to get the attention of Felix, the boy she’s in love with – and who has no idea she exists. To make things worse, he’s in the “rival” class to her own… Little by little, this young woman learns to express herself and find her place in the cruel and treacherous world of adolescence, from MP3 players and Japanese mangas, to her first parties and her first whiskey and Coke.

Rain Wolf, a young native American, is in trouble. He just killed a white man in an act of self-defense. Justifiable in the eyes of the law… when it’s a white man who does it. Bruce, the son of influential railway magnate Vincent McDell, springs his friend Rain Wolf from jail and vows to protect him. Rain Wolf has no choice but to go into hiding. Sent along to accompany him by the tribe sages is Little Moon, the woman Bruce’s brother Jack is in love with. Little Moon is at the age to marry, but she doesn’t yet know who her husband will be. Her mystical grandfather gives her a monocle with strange powers that seems to be guiding her. Meanwhile, the Cody brothers are called upon by the dead man’s mother to bring down the man who killed her son. They’re hot on the trail of the two runaways, having first kidnapped Blanche McDell. But they’re not the only ones…

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.