Gaston Méliès' filmmaking voyage through Asia-Pacific between 1912 and 1913, from California to Polynesia, New Zealand, Australia, Java, Singapore, Cambodia and Japan.

Gaston Méliès and his Wandering Star Film Company

In 1932, Chaplin, in full midlife crisis, escapes to Bali in search of himself to find the artistic rejuvenation and inspiration to do his difficult transition to sound film.

Chaplin in Bali

How the many voyages of Matisse influenced his artistic vision.

The Voyages of Matisse, Chasing Light

Today, 80 years after the events and 40 years after the film, these images and testimonies shed an unexpected light on the reality of the fiction filmed by Petersen. The international success of the film Das Boot made the U-96, of which it fictionally recounts the 7th combat patrol at sea, the most famous of all Hitler's submarines and arguably one of the most famous movie submarines. But the true story of this extraordinary submarine and its equally exceptional crew goes far beyond fiction. Knowing that the success of Das Boot not only opened the doors of Hollywood to Wolfgang Petersen, but also made this film an absolute reference from which all submarine warfare films produced by American cinema were subsequently inspired, this opens ultimately the way to a broader reflection on the indirect, even unconscious relationship that exists between the power of the images of Hitler's propaganda and that of today's Hollywood cinema.