Alain Cavalier

Alain Cavalier is a childlike nonagenarian, a filmmaker who turns his immediate surroundings into an escape route. Yves Jeuland offered to create a portrait of him, somewhat 'in his style.' The rules of the game: five meetings in the small studio. The result: a funny and sensitive journey with this pioneering and enchanting figure of cinema, capable of doing more with less.

“I have on occasion experienced filmmaking as an intensely shared activity. Lively friendships result and remain. Filming that affection today is no act of nostalgia. Paths once crossed make things simple. People who have been behind the camera, or in front of it, giving the movie their all, are without illusion.” (Alain Cavalier)

During a year, they would meet and film each other. The filmmaker and the actor, the President and his prime minister, Alain Cavalier and Vincent Lindon. In Pater, you will see them in real life and in the fiction that they invented together.

In this drama that alludes to the Algerian War with France of the 1960s, Thomas is a deserter from the French Foreign Legion who is on the run from authorities. He helps damsel in distress Dominique, who has been taken hostage by a group of terrorists. Thomas is wounded but manages to escape after killing the guard who inflicted the injury. Dominique gives Thomas money to escape to France after he secures her freedom, but he is caught between the Foreign Legion and the terrorists seeking revenge.

Roger Diamantis owns the Saint-André-des-Arts cinema in Paris. His discovery of the 7th art, his vocation to own a cinema where he could show films that resembled him, and his years in the restoration business to achieve this… He recalls his early days, talks about the filmmakers who found their place with him, and his film “Si j'te cherche, j'me trouve”.

Alain is getting older. For years he has been filming his daily life: his partner Françoise, the people he meets, nature and animals, and life in all its splendour and cruelty. Having devoted his entire life to filmmaking, with the camera as an extension of his arm, he has observed the world with a poetic sense of authenticity and simplicity. Otherness, the approach of death, the power of life and the importance of others intertwine as he looks back on his life as a filmmaker and as a man, concealing nothing, and offering a vision of the universality of the human experience.

From his diary, filmed over ten years, filmmaker Alain Cavalier invites us to a meditation on old age, weakness and death. Made of moments of life, fragments of images, this film composes a mosaic where the spectator is invited to also find his place by himself...

Novelist and screenwriter Emmanuèle Bernheim and filmmaker Alain Cavalier have been friends for 30 years. They are preparing a film based on the former’s autobiography, “Tout s’est bien passé” (Everything Went Fine). In it, she tells how her father asked her to “end it” in the wake of a heart attack. Cavalier suggests that she plays herself, and that he plays her father. One winter morning, Emmanuèle calls Alain; they will have to postpone the shoot until the spring, as she needs an urgent operation.

No synopsis available yet.

No synopsis available yet.

Joseph Morder begins to film his life with a cell phone and thus begins to realize some life-changing experiences in attempts to discover a new film language

A “Cinéma, de notre temps” series episode directed by french filmmaker Jean-Pierre Limosin, originally aired 26 January 1996.

An enchanting mini-portrait of Antoinette, an 86½-year-old magician. Clad in a dress coat and white satin top hat, the elegant Parisienne performs ostensibly simple tricks with astonishing sleight-of-hand. With no more than a napkin, tissue paper or a rain of plastic flowers, Antoinette conjures up a hopeful universe.

An enchanting mini-portrait of Antoinette, an 86½-year-old magician. Clad in a dress coat and white satin top hat, the elegant Parisienne performs ostensibly simple tricks with astonishing sleight-of-hand. With no more than a napkin, tissue paper or a rain of plastic flowers, Antoinette conjures up a hopeful universe.

“I have on occasion experienced filmmaking as an intensely shared activity. Lively friendships result and remain. Filming that affection today is no act of nostalgia. Paths once crossed make things simple. People who have been behind the camera, or in front of it, giving the movie their all, are without illusion.” (Alain Cavalier)

“I have on occasion experienced filmmaking as an intensely shared activity. Lively friendships result and remain. Filming that affection today is no act of nostalgia. Paths once crossed make things simple. People who have been behind the camera, or in front of it, giving the movie their all, are without illusion.” (Alain Cavalier)

The mistress of a wealthy man misses material comforts when she leaves him for a younger lover.

The mistress of a wealthy man misses material comforts when she leaves him for a younger lover.

"In this film you will see a woman's handkerchief tied around a man's wrist, a well-shaven pig's head, some adolescents who are more inventive than their elders in struggling against oppression... You will not, however, hear any dialog. Words do not prepare, do not accompany, do not comment upon the action. This is not a silent film, but a film in which the only moment of life retained for the cinematographic spectacle are those where people do not speak. The spectator will find, perhaps, a greater freedom of interpretation in it and, we hope, a particular pleasure in this." (Alain Cavalier)

"In this film you will see a woman's handkerchief tied around a man's wrist, a well-shaven pig's head, some adolescents who are more inventive than their elders in struggling against oppression... You will not, however, hear any dialog. Words do not prepare, do not accompany, do not comment upon the action. This is not a silent film, but a film in which the only moment of life retained for the cinematographic spectacle are those where people do not speak. The spectator will find, perhaps, a greater freedom of interpretation in it and, we hope, a particular pleasure in this." (Alain Cavalier)

René, a children's theater performer, has a problem : he is a hearty eater and he weighs no less than 155 kilos. After being abandoned by his girlfriend, René decides to go on a diet, notably to reconquer her. It is also an opportunity for him to question his former lifestyle and to define new values...

René, a children's theater performer, has a problem : he is a hearty eater and he weighs no less than 155 kilos. After being abandoned by his girlfriend, René decides to go on a diet, notably to reconquer her. It is also an opportunity for him to question his former lifestyle and to define new values...

When a young auto salesman is forced to give up a vacation with his wife in order to drive a big American car to its new owner who lives on the Riviera, he makes the best of things. First, he gets and old friend to ride along with him. Then, the two of them are joined by another pair of men who want to ride south.

When a young auto salesman is forced to give up a vacation with his wife in order to drive a big American car to its new owner who lives on the Riviera, he makes the best of things. First, he gets and old friend to ride along with him. Then, the two of them are joined by another pair of men who want to ride south.

During a year, they would meet and film each other. The filmmaker and the actor, the President and his prime minister, Alain Cavalier and Vincent Lindon. In Pater, you will see them in real life and in the fiction that they invented together.

During a year, they would meet and film each other. The filmmaker and the actor, the President and his prime minister, Alain Cavalier and Vincent Lindon. In Pater, you will see them in real life and in the fiction that they invented together.

In this drama that alludes to the Algerian War with France of the 1960s, Thomas is a deserter from the French Foreign Legion who is on the run from authorities. He helps damsel in distress Dominique, who has been taken hostage by a group of terrorists. Thomas is wounded but manages to escape after killing the guard who inflicted the injury. Dominique gives Thomas money to escape to France after he secures her freedom, but he is caught between the Foreign Legion and the terrorists seeking revenge.

In this drama that alludes to the Algerian War with France of the 1960s, Thomas is a deserter from the French Foreign Legion who is on the run from authorities. He helps damsel in distress Dominique, who has been taken hostage by a group of terrorists. Thomas is wounded but manages to escape after killing the guard who inflicted the injury. Dominique gives Thomas money to escape to France after he secures her freedom, but he is caught between the Foreign Legion and the terrorists seeking revenge.

In the countryside near Normandy's beaches lives Marie, unhappy. It's 1945, she's married to Jérôme, a somewhat fussy milquetoast, diffident to the war around him and unwilling to move his wife to Paris, where she longs to live, shop, and party. A German outfit is bivouacked at Jérôme and Marie's crumbling château because its commanding officer is pursuing Marie. She's also eyed by a French spy working with the Allies as they plan D-Day. He woos her (posing to the Germans as her brother) and, in his passion, forgets his mission. Heroics come from an unexpected direction, and Marie makes her choice.

A loving couple Martin and Lea have some problems with each other too.

A loving couple Martin and Lea have some problems with each other too.

The charismatic, surly son of a wealthy industrialist, Clément, leads a double life as a member of a right-wing extremist organization. When he’s ratted out after a failed assassination attempt on a prominent politician, Clément and his long-suffering wife Anne flee Paris to the idyllic country home of his childhood friend, pacifist print-maker Paul. As affection blossoms between Paul and Anne, the emotional, as well as political tensions, soar and eventually explode.

The charismatic, surly son of a wealthy industrialist, Clément, leads a double life as a member of a right-wing extremist organization. When he’s ratted out after a failed assassination attempt on a prominent politician, Clément and his long-suffering wife Anne flee Paris to the idyllic country home of his childhood friend, pacifist print-maker Paul. As affection blossoms between Paul and Anne, the emotional, as well as political tensions, soar and eventually explode.

Variations of the three portraits of the movie L'amitié.

The life of little St. Therese of Lisieux, depicted in minimalist vignettes. Therese and her sisters are all nuns in a Carmelite convent. Her devotion to Jesus and her concept of "the little way" to God are shown clearly, using plain modern language. A sense of angelic simplicity comes across without fancy lights, choirs, or showy miracles.

The life of little St. Therese of Lisieux, depicted in minimalist vignettes. Therese and her sisters are all nuns in a Carmelite convent. Her devotion to Jesus and her concept of "the little way" to God are shown clearly, using plain modern language. A sense of angelic simplicity comes across without fancy lights, choirs, or showy miracles.