Nicolas Philibert

Directing

Nicolas Philibert

Born 1951-01-10 · Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France

Nicolas Philibert (French: [filibɛʁ]; born 10 January 1951) is a French documentary filmmaker. He has directed films since 1978. At the 73rd Berlinale (2023), he receives the Golden Bear for his film "On the Adamant". Philibert's father was a film lecturer and he attended his talks in his youth. This encouraged him to embark on a film career. He started this with René Allio (1970), as a trainee on Les Camisards as an assistant on Rude Journée pour la reine (1973) and assistant-director on Moi, Pierre Rivière, ayant égorgé ma mère, ma sœur et mon frère... (1975). In 1978 he co-directed with Gérard Mordillat a feature documentary His Master's Voice, in which a dozen bosses of big industrial groups discuss power, leadership, hierarchies and the role of unions. Between 1985 and 1987, he made several films about mountains and adventure for TV, then turned to making feature-length documentaries for theatrical distribution: La Ville Louvre (1990), Le Pays des sourds (1992), Un animal, des animaux (1995), La Moindre des choses (1996) - at the psychiatric clinic of La Borde, as well as an experimental film with the pupils of the theatre school Théâtre national de Strasbourg, Qui sait? (1998). In 2001, Nicolas Philibert made Être et avoir, about daily life in a single class school on a small village in the Auvergne. It won the Prix Louis Delluc 2002, and became a box office and critical success in France and internationally. The film was screened out of competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. With Retour en Normandie (2007), he revisited the traces of a previous films, made thirty years earlier by René Allio, with local peasants playing the lead roles. With Nénette (2010), made at the Ménagerie du Jardin des plantes in Paris, he produced an intimated portrait of the most famous of its inhabitants a female orang-utang, Nénette, held in captivity for 36 years. La Maison de la radio (2013), takes us into the heart of the French Radio headquarters in Paris, finding out who inhabits the place and discovering the mysteries of its long corridors. Over the last fifteen years there have been more than 120 retrospectives or 'homages' to Philibert organised internationally including the British Film Institute (London) and the Museum of Modern Art (New York). He was one of the directors invited to nominate his favourite films in the British Film Institute's 2012 poll. He explains, in French, his motivations, his influences (including Agnés Varda) and the history of his career as a documentary film maker, especially the 'impermeable' frontiers between documentary and drama in an interview recorded in April 2012.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

To Be and to Have poster
7.3

The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Georges Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.

To Be and to Have

2002

To Be and to Have poster
7.3

The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Georges Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.

To Be and to Have

2002

On the Adamant poster
7.0

The Adamant is a unique day-care centre. A floating structure located on the Seine in the heart of Paris, it welcomes adults suffering from mental disorders, offering the kind of care that grounds them in time and space and helps them to recover or keep up their spirits. The team running it tries to resist the deterioration and dehumanisation of psychiatry as best as they can.

On the Adamant

2023

On the Adamant poster
7.0

The Adamant is a unique day-care centre. A floating structure located on the Seine in the heart of Paris, it welcomes adults suffering from mental disorders, offering the kind of care that grounds them in time and space and helps them to recover or keep up their spirits. The team running it tries to resist the deterioration and dehumanisation of psychiatry as best as they can.

On the Adamant

2023

Christophe poster
10.0

It is 1 p.m. on June 30, 1982, when Christophe Profit, 24, shows up at the foot of Les Drus with his pof bag, his climbing shoes and nothing else. He will try the west face of Les Drus in "solo", in the Mont Blanc massif by "Directe Américaine", 1100 meters of vertical and smooth rock. Christophe will achieve the feat of climbing the wall in free solo, without using a rope or any belaying technique. At 4:10 p.m., barely more than three hours after the start of his ascent, the new climbing star can embrace the Virgin of the Drus at the same time as the career of a high-level mountaineer. Three years later, on July 25, 1985, he climbed the north faces of the Matterhorn, the Eiger and the Jorasses in the same day. Awarded at many mountain film festivals, this great documentary is a magnificent testimony to one man's passion for climbing, the mountains and adventure.

Christophe

1985

The Measure of the Feat poster
10.0

A film about the preparation of the "Trilogy For a Single Man," about the medical and nutritional monitoring of French mountaineer Christophe Profit during his climbing "trilogy" and the period of intensive training that preceded one of the most fabulous "chains" ever made by a mountaineer. On March 12 and 13, 1987, Christophe Profit, then 26, successfully climbed the three largest north faces of the Alps in winter in 40 hours: Grandes Jorasses, Eiger, Matterhorn. But beyond this coverage of the event, it is the behind-the-scenes that is revealed, the story of this project, the ups and downs of its preparations and the personality of its author, a dancer of the verticals, who concentrates at his fingertips the energy and reflexes of life itself.

The Measure of the Feat

1987

Forcenés poster
NR

Excerpts from a reading of texts on the heroes of the Tour de France by Jacques Bonnaffé, accompanied by Louis Sclavis on clarinet and sax. Complementary bonus film to the DVD edition of "La Maison de la Radio" (November 2013).

Forcenés

2013

La Maison de la Radio poster
6.4

Making a film about a radio station doesn’t sound like the most visually compelling of projects. How many takes do you need before the acoustic transition from the opening to the closing of a door is perfect or the reader's voice correctly modulated? Nicolas Philibert has accepted the challenge to portray that which cannot be seen. Shouldering his camera, he spent half a year wandering the endless corridors of Radio France’s ‘round house’ on the banks of the Seine where he filmed people who dedicate themselves utterly and meticulously to their work.

La Maison de la Radio

2013

La Maison de la Radio poster
6.4

Making a film about a radio station doesn’t sound like the most visually compelling of projects. How many takes do you need before the acoustic transition from the opening to the closing of a door is perfect or the reader's voice correctly modulated? Nicolas Philibert has accepted the challenge to portray that which cannot be seen. Shouldering his camera, he spent half a year wandering the endless corridors of Radio France’s ‘round house’ on the banks of the Seine where he filmed people who dedicate themselves utterly and meticulously to their work.

La Maison de la Radio

2013

Who Knows? poster
7.3

We see how a show, created, improvised and acted by the collaboration of students at Strasbourg's National Theater, is developed from start to finish, in this documentary.

Who Knows?

1999

Who Knows? poster
7.3

We see how a show, created, improvised and acted by the collaboration of students at Strasbourg's National Theater, is developed from start to finish, in this documentary.

Who Knows?

1999

Nénette poster
6.5

Nénette, an orangutan, is the star of the Parisian zoo where she has lived most of her long life. She is a mother of four and has survived three mates, and she bonds only with a few select keepers. The camera rests throughout on Nénette and the other apes in everyday situations. We only see the visitors as occasional reflections in the glass, but we hear their recorded comments and conversations alongside interviews with the zoo keepers.

Nénette

2010

Nénette poster
6.5

Nénette, an orangutan, is the star of the Parisian zoo where she has lived most of her long life. She is a mother of four and has survived three mates, and she bonds only with a few select keepers. The camera rests throughout on Nénette and the other apes in everyday situations. We only see the visitors as occasional reflections in the glass, but we hear their recorded comments and conversations alongside interviews with the zoo keepers.

Nénette

2010

No artwork available
NR

A new shorter and uncensored TV version of Patrons - Télévision (1979). The dates "1978 / 1991" are used in reference to the "missing years", the amount of time during which the film was not authorized to be shown on TV in France.

Patrons 78-91

1991

No artwork available
NR

A new shorter and uncensored TV version of Patrons - Télévision (1979). The dates "1978 / 1991" are used in reference to the "missing years", the amount of time during which the film was not authorized to be shown on TV in France.

Patrons 78-91

1991

At Averroes & Rosa Parks poster
7.2

Averroès and Rosa Parks: two units of the Esquirol Hospital, which - like the Adamant - are part of the Paris Central Psychiatric Group. From individual interviews to «carer-patient» meetings, the filmmaker focuses on showing a form of psychiatry that continually strives to make room for and rehabilitate the patients’ words. Little by little, each one eases open the door to their world. Within an increasingly worn-out health system, how can the forsaken be given a place among others.

At Averroes & Rosa Parks

2024

At Averroes & Rosa Parks poster
7.2

Averroès and Rosa Parks: two units of the Esquirol Hospital, which - like the Adamant - are part of the Paris Central Psychiatric Group. From individual interviews to «carer-patient» meetings, the filmmaker focuses on showing a form of psychiatry that continually strives to make room for and rehabilitate the patients’ words. Little by little, each one eases open the door to their world. Within an increasingly worn-out health system, how can the forsaken be given a place among others.

At Averroes & Rosa Parks

2024

Louvre City poster
7.0

A voyage into the museum's reserves, and part of the extra work involved to mount the expositions after the renovation of the Louvre in the 1980s, when the glass pyramid was added to the classic buildings. From the preservation rooms through the frame and painting retouches by experts, to the personnel instruction on how to be efficient in protecting the collections, and look nice to the visitors.

Louvre City

1990

Louvre City poster
7.0

A voyage into the museum's reserves, and part of the extra work involved to mount the expositions after the renovation of the Louvre in the 1980s, when the glass pyramid was added to the classic buildings. From the preservation rooms through the frame and painting retouches by experts, to the personnel instruction on how to be efficient in protecting the collections, and look nice to the visitors.

Louvre City

1990

No artwork available
NR

Interview with Jean Oury, director of the La Borde psychiatric clinic. Complementary bonus film to the DVD edition of "La Moindre des Choses" (Every Little Thing), autumn 2002.

The Invisible

2002

No artwork available
NR

On the occasion of Catherine's 50th birthday, her parents, relatives, and friends step in front of the camera to wish her a happy birthday.

Pour Catherine

1995

Each and Every Moment poster
6.3

Every year, thousands of students – mostly female – embark upon courses that will lead them to become nurses. This film follows the ups and downs of an apprenticeship that will confront them, often at a young age, with human fragility, suffering, illness, the flaws in souls and bodies.

Each and Every Moment

2018

Each and Every Moment poster
6.3

Every year, thousands of students – mostly female – embark upon courses that will lead them to become nurses. This film follows the ups and downs of an apprenticeship that will confront them, often at a young age, with human fragility, suffering, illness, the flaws in souls and bodies.

Each and Every Moment

2018

His Master's Voice poster
6.6

Jacques Lemonnier of IBM France, Francois Dalle of L'Oreal and other ultrapowerful French moguls are surprisingly candid -- and cold-blooded -- as they discuss their attitudes about business in this startling 1978 documentary. After sounding off about unions, strikes, hierarchy and management, the subjects realized how callous they sounded and managed to convince the French government to suppress the film.

His Master's Voice

1978