Isidore Bethel

Directing

Isidore Bethel

Born

1989-01-01 (37)

Known for

Directing

Credits

14 titles

Isidore Bethel is an editor, director, and producer whom Filmmaker named one of the "25 New Faces of Independent Film" in 2020. His work uses filmmaking to make sense of overwhelming experiences and touches on recurrent themes of displacement, grief, therapy, aging, trauma, and sexuality. His first feature film as director, Liam, premiered at the Boston LGBT Film Festival in 2018 and received the Jury Prize in the Documentary section of the Paris LGBTQ+ Film Festival. His second film, Acts of Love, co-directed with French actor Francis Leplay, premiered at Hot Docs in 2021. The films he has edited and produced have screened at Cannes (Official and ACID sections), IDFA, Visions du Réel, Ciném…

Known for

Acts of Love poster
4.4

When his older boyfriend loses interest in him, the filmmaker relocates to Chicago and uses dating apps to cast new lovers in an amorphous project that his mother hates.

Acts of Love

2021

Of Men and War poster
6.9

Filmed over five years, this documentary charts the progress of several veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder at a California clinic.

Of Men and War

2014

Wi Cyah Stay poster
NR

When their homes in rural Jamaica become unsafe, a queer teen and his cousin dare to confide in their aunt.

Wi Cyah Stay

2025

What We Leave Behind poster
6.3

At the age of 89, Julián Moreno takes one last bus ride to El Paso, Texas, to visit his daughters and their children – a lengthy trip he has made without fail every month for decades. After returning to rural Mexico, he quietly starts building a house in the empty lot next to his home. In the absence of his physical visits, can this new house bridge the distance between his loved ones?

What We Leave Behind

2022

Liam poster
NR

Just after Isidore moves to France to study filmmaking, his best friend dies back in the US. Through documentary, performance, and animation, a ghostly portrait emerges, prompting Isidore to question his relationships with his parents and his boyfriend in Paris.

Liam

2018

The Ballad of Oppenheimer Park poster
6.0

The Ballad of Oppenheimer Park is a film that celebrates the everyday life of a group of Indigenous people, exiles from Canadian reserves, who, over a fleeting summer, hang out in a contested park in Vancouver. Through direct participation in the filmmaking process, the day to day becomes a ceremonial space in the ongoing confrontation against law and order.

The Ballad of Oppenheimer Park

2016

Film credits

Behind the camera

Acts of Love poster
4.4

When his older boyfriend loses interest in him, the filmmaker relocates to Chicago and uses dating apps to cast new lovers in an amorphous project that his mother hates.

Acts of Love

2021

Acts of Love poster
4.4

When his older boyfriend loses interest in him, the filmmaker relocates to Chicago and uses dating apps to cast new lovers in an amorphous project that his mother hates.

Acts of Love

2021

Acts of Love poster
4.4

When his older boyfriend loses interest in him, the filmmaker relocates to Chicago and uses dating apps to cast new lovers in an amorphous project that his mother hates.

Acts of Love

2021

Of Men and War poster
6.9

Filmed over five years, this documentary charts the progress of several veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder at a California clinic.

Of Men and War

2014

Wi Cyah Stay poster
NR

When their homes in rural Jamaica become unsafe, a queer teen and his cousin dare to confide in their aunt.

Wi Cyah Stay

2025

What We Leave Behind poster
6.3

At the age of 89, Julián Moreno takes one last bus ride to El Paso, Texas, to visit his daughters and their children – a lengthy trip he has made without fail every month for decades. After returning to rural Mexico, he quietly starts building a house in the empty lot next to his home. In the absence of his physical visits, can this new house bridge the distance between his loved ones?

What We Leave Behind

2022

Liam poster
NR

Just after Isidore moves to France to study filmmaking, his best friend dies back in the US. Through documentary, performance, and animation, a ghostly portrait emerges, prompting Isidore to question his relationships with his parents and his boyfriend in Paris.

Liam

2018

Liam poster
NR

Just after Isidore moves to France to study filmmaking, his best friend dies back in the US. Through documentary, performance, and animation, a ghostly portrait emerges, prompting Isidore to question his relationships with his parents and his boyfriend in Paris.

Liam

2018

Liam poster
NR

Just after Isidore moves to France to study filmmaking, his best friend dies back in the US. Through documentary, performance, and animation, a ghostly portrait emerges, prompting Isidore to question his relationships with his parents and his boyfriend in Paris.

Liam

2018

The Ballad of Oppenheimer Park poster
6.0

The Ballad of Oppenheimer Park is a film that celebrates the everyday life of a group of Indigenous people, exiles from Canadian reserves, who, over a fleeting summer, hang out in a contested park in Vancouver. Through direct participation in the filmmaking process, the day to day becomes a ceremonial space in the ongoing confrontation against law and order.

The Ballad of Oppenheimer Park

2016

No artwork available
NR

Incarcerated participants in a mental health experiment watch videos of sunset-soaked beaches, wildflowers and forests on loop, prompting them to reflect on isolation and wilderness. Equal parts meditation and provocation, Blue Room identifies the damage done by withholding access to the outdoors and how we are all prisoners when the essential human need for communion with nature is denied.

Blue Room

2022

Some Kind of Intimacy poster
5.5

The filmmaker tries to communicate with the sheep living where his parents are buried.

Some Kind of Intimacy

2021

Some Kind of Intimacy poster
5.5

The filmmaker tries to communicate with the sheep living where his parents are buried.

Some Kind of Intimacy

2021