Writing
Françoise Giroud
Born 1916-09-21 · Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland
Françoise Giroud (born Lea France Gourdji; 21 September 1916 – 19 January 2003) was a French journalist, screenwriter, writer, and politician. Giroud was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, to immigrant Sephardi Turkish Jewish parents; her father was Salih Gourdji Al Baghdadi, Director of the Agence Télégraphique Ottomane in Geneva. She was educated at the Collège de Groslay and the Lycée Molière in Paris. She did not graduate from university. She married and had two children, a son (who died before her) and a daughter. Giroud's work in cinema began with director Marc Allégret as a script-girl on his 1932 adaptation of Marcel Pagnol's play Fanny. In 1936, she worked with Jean Renoir on the set of Grand Illusion. She later wrote screenplays, 30 books (both fiction and non-fiction), and wrote newspaper columns. She was the editor of Elle magazine from 1946 (shortly after it was founded) until 1953, when she and her then-partner Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber founded the newsmagazine L'Express. She edited L'Express until 1971, then was its director until 1974, when she began her political career. In 1974, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing nominated Giroud to the position of Secretary of State for women's rights, which she held from 16 July 1974 until 27 August 1976, when she was appointed to the position of Minister of Culture. She remained in that position until March 1977, for a total service of 32 months, serving in the cabinets of prime ministers Jacques Chirac and Raymond Barre. She was a member of the centrist Radical Party. Giroud often said that her goal was to get France "out of its rut", contrasting France with the dynamism and optimism she saw in the United States. On her first visit to New York City soon after World War 2 ended, she had been struck by "the degree of optimism, the exhilaration" she had found there. That view stayed with her: "There is a strength in the United States that we in Europe constantly tend to underestimate." Giroud gave the commencement address at the University of Michigan on 1 May 1976. Giroud received the Légion d'honneur. She led Action Against Hunger, a humanitarian aid organization, from 1984 to 1988. From 1989 to 1991, she was president of a commission to improve cinema-ticket sales. She was a literary critic for the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche, and she contributed a weekly column to Le Nouvel Observateur from 1983 until her death. Giroud died at the American Hospital of Paris on 21 September 2003 while being treated for a head wound incurred in a fall. A special issue of L'Express covered Giroud's death. It stated: "Women everywhere have lost something. Ms. Giroud defended them so intelligently and so strongly." Source: Article "Françoise Giroud" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Acting credits
6.4In the 70s, actress Delphine Seyrig and director Carole Roussopoulos, both militant feminists, were the pioneers of video activism in France. They documented the demonstrations of French feminists and used the new technologies to counter the poor representation of women in the public media.
Delphine and Carole
2020
5.3The year 1975 is declared “year of the woman”. On this occasion Bernard Pivot invited Françoise Giroud on television, then Secretary of State for Women. Faced with statements, a group of women filmmakers parody the issues in a provocative way.
Maso and Miso Go Boating
1976
9.0A doumentary of the life and career of French actor, Jean-Pierre Aumont.
Jean-Pierre Aumont, charme et fou-rires
1999
7.0No synopsis available yet.
Entretien politique : Histoire et mode d'emploi
2020
Behind the camera
5.8Claire's handbag is stolen. It contained a letter written ten years previously by the man who is now the French President. In the letter, he urges his pregnant mistress to have an abortion. Claire immediately alerts the President's men. From that moment, the machinery of state swings into action.
Le Bon Plaisir
1984
6.21947, in France, Antoine and Antoinette, a young couple living in Paris, lead a monotonous existence: he works in a print shop while she is a shop assistant. But one evening, they regain hope: Antoine finds a winning lottery ticket in his girlfriend's handbag. He decides to cash it in, but loses his wallet. What follows is a series of twists and turns that redefine the couple's priorities while forcing them to remain optimistic.
Antoine & Antoinette
1947
7.5Hélène has an affair with Alain for ten years, but does not want to divorce her husband. Alain receives one letter from a girl Michelle one day. Hélène, who is very jealous, receives that letter by chance and interprets it incorrectly.
Last Love
1949
6.4Julietta Valendor is in love with lawyer André Landrecourt. He is unaware of her feelings. He puts her up one day when he has his fiancée, Rosie, staying with him... Based on a novel of Louise de Vilmorin.
Julietta
1953
7.0Melodrama of two struggling artists whose love for each other is thwarted.She has some success as a ballerina despite being wounded by him in a fit of jealousy. His career as a sculptor is stymied when he is arrested.
Here Is the Beauty
1950
5.0Madame Célerier is determined to marry off her son François to a rich and haughty woman but François has other plans.
Love, Madame
1952
6.7After lovers fight, the boy leaves for the Riviera. On her way to rejoin him, the girl meets a distinguished but embittered novelist and decides to spend time comforting him.Which is not going to help when she returns to her boyfriend.
Happy Go Lucky
1946
5.8The invincible bandit faces his daughter, courageous and honest, who wants to end his criminal activities. With a young journalist, her fiancé, she discovers his hideout.
Fantômas
1947
9.0Madame Clapain dies in dubious circumstances at the home of the Cadifon ladies, of which she was a tenant. A friendly inspector and Thérèse Cadifon each carry out their own investigation.
The Secret of Madame Clapain
1943
8.0A young woman is in love with a young writer, winner of the Prix Goncourt. Married to a banker, she must face her husband's anger and the blackmail of a former suitor.
Promise to the Unknown One
1942
9.0Marie Leroux, who is married to Charles, an honest, understanding country doctor, lives an uneventful, rather monotonous life.Her husband is a kind man but he does not give her any thrill or excitement. One day, Marie meets Olivier Dumas-Beaulieu, a handsome industrialist, who is in the process of leaving his fiancée Corinne, despite her being pregnant by him. It is easy for the confirmed womanizer he is, to seduce Marie, who very foolishly thinks she has found true love. Shortly afterward Charles is shot dead by Olivier while the two men were having a quarrel about Marie. The latter, who finds the corpse, believes her husband has committed suicide. Which is not the police's opinion and Marie is arrested and condemned to ten years in prison. Annihilated by such unfair treatment and, worse, by the separation from her beloved eight-year-old daughter, she still manages to survive and to serve her sentence.
Mensonges
1946