Joël Barbouth

I give a methodical account of my film work: the creation of new series (Lire, Trio, Avec Mariola), the shooting of a new feature film (Amours décolorées which will take ten years to edit) with Mariola San Martin.

Zones césariennes (which covers the year 2002) is one of Gérard Courant's Filmed Notebooks shot on film. These episodes now coexist with their counterparts filmed on videotape. They are two films with parallel lives but opposing destinies, colliding and eyeing each other warily. They represent two approaches, two styles, two different ways of understanding cinema. Two methods for unfolding time, grasping memory, and exploring the world.

The ending of filming 24 passions over 24 years in Burzet (France). Shot on a silver film, it takes us on a tour around the area now left empty.

Like a Candide dreaming of Eldorado, Jallel lands in France, hoping to try his luck. From encounter to encounter, hostel to social welfare group, Jallel will make his way through a Paris of outcasts. Although failing to achieve his hopes, he discovers and shares in the solidarity felt by the destitute.

The film follows Etienne, a 40-year-old car designer, who takes time off from work to study sexual mastery from a Zen master and several prostitutes, in the hopes of having the sexual skill to impress Laure. Laure, a blonde who was introduced to him by his friend Jacques, told Etienne on January 1 that she will not have sex with him until May 27 that year at precisely 9 PM.

Marc and Camille live with their little daughter in an isolated house on the Estérel coast. The fish Marc catches in the morning are enough to keep his family fed. In the afternoon, he's a parking lot attendant. The family enjoys a peaceful existence on the fringes of society - until the day that a gendarme decides to put an end to this freedom.

After being burned in romance just one time too many, Quentin has become a master at amiable, superficial relationships. In fact, most people can't help but like him, as he is clearly a sensitive and thoughtful fellow, in addition to being friendly. He frequently pulls up stakes and moves to a new town when things grow too intimate for his liking. Now he has fallen in love with a single mother who makes settling down look more attractive than wandering on. However, achieving the breakthrough to real intimacy will cost him a good deal of pain.

Philippe is a middle-aged painter, he lives with Annie : they have two kids. Just after they split up, Philippe meets Justine. He starts thinking about love, the relationship between former lovers..

An adolescent comes of age during a summer in the Rhône valley with his maternal grandparents. Jules seems a little too close to his mother and distant from his father, who wants Jules out of their Parisian house. It's to be a summer of transition, perhaps to a boarding school, and during these weeks in the country, Jules fishes with his grandfather; proves himself to the local youths, a group led by the bullying Red; takes on some tough guys; feels rejected by his mother; and, meets and pursues Evelyne, the village beauty. She's responsive, and Jules doesn't exactly know what to do next. Then, something happens that propels Jules into decisiveness and maturity.

This French-German-Dutch biopic on the life of 17th century Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn is told in flashbacks from the point-of-view of the aged artist. Soon after establishing his career as a painter in Amsterdam, he marries the radiant Saskia. As he makes a name for himself, he can soon afford to buy a large house by teaching wealthy aristocrats how to paint. However, the couple's happiness is short-lived; Saskia dies soon after bearing their son, Titus. Crushed, van Rijn seeks comfort first in the arms of his maid Geertje and then with his second wife, Hendrickje, who gives birth to a daughter. In spite of his genius, van Rijn's determinedly eccentric behavior alienates the very members of the elite who were paying his bills. At one point, the artist's home and belongings, including many of his paintings, are seized and sold for humiliatingly low prices in a rigged auction.

No synopsis available yet.

Mélanie, a young student from Paris, is thinking of posing (nude) for a photographer...

On the planet Gandahar where peace reigns and poverty is unknown, this utopian lifestyle is upset by reports of people at the outlying frontiers being turned to stone. Sylvain is sent to investigate this mysterious threat.

No synopsis available yet.

Poetic sci-fi film as an homage to Cinema, Cocteau, Goodis and to American B-series of the 1940s. Constructed exclusively on photograms in black and white and freely inspired on Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville.

The story about gladiators against a German background. One of them, Ettore, has become a star of the underworld. He ends up breaking down, caught in a role he can no longer fulfill. His last betrayal is to spill the beans to the press. –São Paulo International Film Festival

In the mist of the Algerian events, a man finds a fugitive happiness beside a local woman.

In 1971, the Algerian government nationalized hydrocarbons. The consequences of this decision on the community of Algerians in France are numerous. The Galti family is prey to these economic problems. The father, Khaled, former member of the F.L.N. in France, does not escape the sentence. Sharazade, his wife and comrade in combat, finds herself torn between her role as wife, mother and nostalgia for a country and a bygone past. As for his son Karim, a victim of socio-cultural division, all he has left is refusal.

The veneer of the story is a tale of chance love: two French expatriates strike up a chance romance when they meet on a ship headed back to South America.

Reel 25 of Gérard Courant’s on-going Cinematon series.

At the turn of the century, an unusual woman refuses to become an object to be desired or played with. Instead she wants to succeed on the stage of politics in the Third Republic.

Two women work as entertainers and prostitutes to raise enough money for their dream home.

This satire concerns three French singing idols and their attempt to stay in the public eye. A press conference, backstage hedonism, psychedelia, manipulative managers and disc jockeys are portrayed as the pop culture is thoroughly and effectively lampooned in this independent feature.

Poupée and her (so-called) brother Paulo share an apartment in Paris. They dream of becoming actors. In the meantime, life goes on, nothing happens, until Poupée meets François.

Four young teenage girls are betrayed by a supposed "friend" and sold to a perverted nightclub owner who ties them up, whips them and then forces them into prostitution.

Renee Saccard is a pampered, selfish young wife of a middle-aged Parisian businessman who falls in love with her stepson but is driven to the point of madness when her husband tricks the stepson into betraying her.

A gang of young tugs led by Frankie, opens a nightclub just in front of a gangster's hideout. Morelli is his name and he prepares the stealing of the century.

A detective narrates this story of police investigating three murders and discovering that their leads take them to the heart of a white slavery ring that is also in the drug trade. Men set up parties, invite young women, and then drug them, kidnap them, and sell them off to brothels.

The idyllic life of a beautiful gypsy girl is shattered when she runs away from a pre-arranged marriage to a member of her tribe. Away from the safety of her people, she encounters bigotry against her kind. A little girl feels sorry for the missing gypsy beauty and searches for a magic root that can cure the wandering gypsy from her wanderlust and bring her home again. Music, dance, ancient gypsy rituals, and colorful European scenery highlight this feature which takes a decidedly jaundiced view of the racial indignities suffered by the heroine.

A young student visits the home of a friend who has all the good looks, women and luck. Every day, through binoculars from his friend's window, he sees a young girl in front of her home. Although attractive, the woman's face has been badly scarred. He finds out her phone number and the two engage in pleasant conversation. He gets up enough nerve to ask to meet her in person, but the socially inept young man becomes paralyzed with fear. He again summons the courage to meet with her before he is plagued with fear once again.