Sébastien Lifshitz

Directing

Sébastien Lifshitz

Born 1968-01-22 · Paris, France

Sébastien Lifshitz (born 1968) is a French screenwriter and director. He teaches at La Fémis, a school that focuses on the subject of image and sound. He studied at the École du Louvre and has a bachelor's degree from the University of Paris in history of art. He is Jewish and gay. Lifshitz's work involves LGBTQ+ themes. His 2004 film, Wild Side, involves several narratives, some told forward and some backward, about a transgender prostitute. He is a two-time winner of the Teddy Award, presented by an independent committee at the Berlin International Film Festival to the year's best films with LGBT themes, winning Best Feature Film in 2004 for Wild Side and Best Documentary Film in 2013 for Bambi, a documentary profile of transgender French entertainer Marie-Pierre Pruvot. In 2014, Rizzoli International published Lifshitz's The Invisibles: Vintage Portraits of Love and Pride, a collection of gay-themed photos from the early 20th century. Description above from the Wikipedia article Sébastien Lifshitz, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

Wild Side poster
5.8

A transgender woman returns — with her two male lovers — to her family home in the countryside to look after her dying mother.

Wild Side

2004

Wild Side poster
5.8

A transgender woman returns — with her two male lovers — to her family home in the countryside to look after her dying mother.

Wild Side

2004

The Crossing poster
6.3

French national Stéphane Bouquet, the illegitimate son of a U.S. soldier, goes looking for the father he never met in the United States' heartland.

The Crossing

2001

Little Girl poster
7.8

7-year-old Sasha has always known that she is a girl. Sasha’s family has recently accepted her gender identity, embracing their daughter for who she truly is while working to confront outdated norms and find affirmation in a small community of rural France.

Little Girl

2020

Little Girl poster
7.8

7-year-old Sasha has always known that she is a girl. Sasha’s family has recently accepted her gender identity, embracing their daughter for who she truly is while working to confront outdated norms and find affirmation in a small community of rural France.

Little Girl

2020

A Very Good Boy poster
7.0

From his childhood in a modest family in the Pyrénées to his unexpected career as a porn actor in the 1970s, the film traces the life of Claude Loir, who set out to fully embrace life. His homosexuality and curiosity guide him through encounters that lead into the shadowy, liberated circles of a pre-AIDS era, caught between conservatism and sexual freedom. Loves and lovers, flamboyance and fragility… the film offers a striking portrait of a fearless, hedonistic man navigating desire, identity, and society’s constraints.

A Very Good Boy

2026

Adolescents poster
7.3

Emma and Anaïs are best friends and yet everything in their life seems to set them apart, their social backgrounds but also their personalities. From the age of thirteen to eighteen, Adolescentes follows the two teenagers during these years where radical transformations and first times punctuate daily life. Through their personal stories, the film offers a rare portrait of France and its recent history.

Adolescents

2020

Adolescents poster
7.3

Emma and Anaïs are best friends and yet everything in their life seems to set them apart, their social backgrounds but also their personalities. From the age of thirteen to eighteen, Adolescentes follows the two teenagers during these years where radical transformations and first times punctuate daily life. Through their personal stories, the film offers a rare portrait of France and its recent history.

Adolescents

2020

Come Undone poster
6.4

Story of two gorgeous, young French boys who begin a passionate relationship that boils over and threatens to destroy both their lives. Shy 18-year-old Mathieu is on summer vacation in the south of France. He spends his days lazily sunning himself at the beach, until he spies the handsome Cédric and falls in love.

Come Undone

2000

Come Undone poster
6.4

Story of two gorgeous, young French boys who begin a passionate relationship that boils over and threatens to destroy both their lives. Shy 18-year-old Mathieu is on summer vacation in the south of France. He spends his days lazily sunning himself at the beach, until he spies the handsome Cédric and falls in love.

Come Undone

2000

Madame Hofmann poster
6.7

"Welcome to my life", Sylvie Hofmann repeats this sentence almost all day long. Sylvie has been a nurse for 40 years at the North Hospital of Marseille. Her life is running. Between patients, her sick mother, her husband and her daughter, she has always devoted her life to helping others. What if she decided to think a little about herself? To retire? Does she have the right, but above all, does she really want to?

Madame Hofmann

2024

Madame Hofmann poster
6.7

"Welcome to my life", Sylvie Hofmann repeats this sentence almost all day long. Sylvie has been a nurse for 40 years at the North Hospital of Marseille. Her life is running. Between patients, her sick mother, her husband and her daughter, she has always devoted her life to helping others. What if she decided to think a little about herself? To retire? Does she have the right, but above all, does she really want to?

Madame Hofmann

2024

Bambi poster
6.0

Bambi was born Jean-Pierre Pruvot in a tiny Algerian village in 1935. Even as a child, she refused to meet the expectations of her extended family, choosing instead to find a way to become the woman she always knew herself to be. A Cabaret Carrousel de Paris performance in Algiers in the 1950s proved to be all the encouragement she needed to emigrate to the French capital, assume the stage name of ‘Bambi’ and lead the life she longed for on the music-hall stages.

Bambi

2013

Bambi poster
6.0

Bambi was born Jean-Pierre Pruvot in a tiny Algerian village in 1935. Even as a child, she refused to meet the expectations of her extended family, choosing instead to find a way to become the woman she always knew herself to be. A Cabaret Carrousel de Paris performance in Algiers in the 1950s proved to be all the encouragement she needed to emigrate to the French capital, assume the stage name of ‘Bambi’ and lead the life she longed for on the music-hall stages.

Bambi

2013

Bambi poster
6.0

Bambi was born Jean-Pierre Pruvot in a tiny Algerian village in 1935. Even as a child, she refused to meet the expectations of her extended family, choosing instead to find a way to become the woman she always knew herself to be. A Cabaret Carrousel de Paris performance in Algiers in the 1950s proved to be all the encouragement she needed to emigrate to the French capital, assume the stage name of ‘Bambi’ and lead the life she longed for on the music-hall stages.

Bambi

2013

Going South poster
5.7

In the summer, 27 year-old Sam drives towards the south of France in his Ford. He meets Matthieu and his sister Léa and takes them along in his apparently aimless journey. Matthieu has a crush on Sam and tries to seduce him. Léa is a beautiful, young, provocative girl who likes men so much that she got pregnant. She soon brings along Jérémie with them. Throughout the trip, they learn to know, fight and love each other. In spite of a blooming relationship with Matthieu, Sam isolates himself because of his secret: he is headed for Spain to find his long-lost mother.

Going South

2009

Going South poster
5.7

In the summer, 27 year-old Sam drives towards the south of France in his Ford. He meets Matthieu and his sister Léa and takes them along in his apparently aimless journey. Matthieu has a crush on Sam and tries to seduce him. Léa is a beautiful, young, provocative girl who likes men so much that she got pregnant. She soon brings along Jérémie with them. Throughout the trip, they learn to know, fight and love each other. In spite of a blooming relationship with Matthieu, Sam isolates himself because of his secret: he is headed for Spain to find his long-lost mother.

Going South

2009

Cold Lands poster
5.3

A young Frenchman of Arab descent, Djamel, becomes convinced that his long-lost father is a rich factory owner in Grenoble. When the man coldly rejects him, Djamel plots a revenge that will implicate the man's closeted gay son.

Cold Lands

1999

Cold Lands poster
5.3

A young Frenchman of Arab descent, Djamel, becomes convinced that his long-lost father is a rich factory owner in Grenoble. When the man coldly rejects him, Djamel plots a revenge that will implicate the man's closeted gay son.

Cold Lands

1999

Sensitive Boys poster
NR

A unique and committed look at the representation of male homosexuality on French television. Without commentary, exclusively made up of archives, this film tells about the existence of the margin in the norm. A poetic and political work that highlights the power of the media over our imaginations.

Sensitive Boys

2021

Open Bodies poster
5.3

Born to a North African father and a French mother, 18-year-old Parisian high school senior Rémi works part-time in an Arab grocery store while studying management and commerce. He responds to a school ad seeking subjects for a film, and Marc, who placed the ad, auditions Rémi by filming an interview with him. Rémi and Marc wind up in bed, and Rémi soon has other sexual experiences – with a guy in a men's room and with a young woman who grabs him while she's dancing in the street.

Open Bodies

1998

Open Bodies poster
5.3

Born to a North African father and a French mother, 18-year-old Parisian high school senior Rémi works part-time in an Arab grocery store while studying management and commerce. He responds to a school ad seeking subjects for a film, and Marc, who placed the ad, auditions Rémi by filming an interview with him. Rémi and Marc wind up in bed, and Rémi soon has other sexual experiences – with a guy in a men's room and with a young woman who grabs him while she's dancing in the street.

Open Bodies

1998

Day and Night poster
6.0

A naked man is peacefully sleeping on his bed. The sun touches his skin. When he's awake, a melancholic boy appears to us.

Day and Night

2008

Les Invisibles poster
6.8

Several elderly homosexual men and women speak frankly about their pioneering lives, their fearless decision to live openly in France at a time when society rejected them.

Les Invisibles

2012