Gilles Jacob

Directing

Gilles Jacob

Born 1930-06-22 · Paris, France

Gilles Jacob (born 22 June 1930) is a French film critic and essayist, who served as president of the Cannes Film Festival between 2001 and 2014. Born in Paris, the son of an entrepreneur, Jacob studied at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, having Claude Chabrol as a schoolmate. At 17 years old he co-founded a short-lived cinema magazine, Raccords. He then collaborated as a film critic and journalist with several publications, including Cinéma, Les Nouvelles littéraires and L'Express. In 1976 he was named deputy delegate general of the Cannes Film Festival, before becoming delegate general in 1978, and finally becoming president of the festival from 2001 to 2014. He stayed in the festival's board of directors until 2018, and since then he served as member of the General Assembly of the festival. Among his initiatives, were the foundation of the Un Certain Regard selection, the Caméra d'Or award, and the Cinéfondation. During his career Jacob received various honours and accolades, notably the Legion of Honour.[4] He served as a juror at the 47th Venice International Film Festival. Source: Article "Gilles Jacob" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.

Acting credits

Femme Fatale poster
6.2

A $10-million diamond rip-off, a stolen identity, a new life married to a diplomat. Laure Ash has risked big, won big. But then a tabloid shutterbug snaps her picture in Paris, and suddenly, enemies from Laure's secret past know who and where she is. And they all want their share of the diamond heist. Or her life. Or both.

Femme Fatale

2002

Dead Tired poster
6.0

Stressed and overworked, famous French movie star Michel Blanc is beginning to wear down, physically and mentally, from the pressure and demands of fame. Already in a fragile state of mind, strange events start to transpire all around him, and he gradually loses his grip. Taking the advice of a psychiatrist, Blanc retreats to the countryside with his friend Carole Bouquet, but Blanc still has not managed to escape all of his problems.

Dead Tired

1994

Morceaux de Cannes poster
2.0

We thought we'd seen, read, and heard everything there was to see about the Cannes Film Festival, from the glitz and gossip to the scandals and censorship. And yet, Emmanuel Barnault's "Morceaux de Cannes" (Pieces of Cannes), by this leading expert on Italian and French cinema, convinces us otherwise. The third largest event in the world (after the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup) reveals its secrets only sparingly, as this film attests. The result of passionate research in the INA archives, these 52 minutes, without interviews or voice-over narration, string together rare and sometimes previously unseen footage. Taken together, they tell a surprising, original, and heartwarming story of the Festival. On the beach, on a street corner, in a restaurant, or in the privacy of a hotel room, these forgotten archives summon the greatest filmmakers, actors, and actresses of the last seventy years, from Jean Cocteau to David Lynch, for an anthology of the Festival's history.

Morceaux de Cannes

2021

Mr. X poster
6.1

The image of a mysterious, solitary filmmaker - a cineaste maudit - who flees from both the media and the public, is unrelentingly bound to the figure of Leos Carax, in France. Elsewhere, the real focus is on his films and he is considered to be an icon of world cinema. Mr.X dives into the poetic and visionary world of an artist who was already a cult figure from his very first film. Punctuated by interviews and unseen footage, this documentary is most of all a fine-tuned exploration of the poetic and visionary world of Leos Carax, alias "Mr.X".

Mr. X

2014

100 Films and a Funeral poster
7.3

A lively look at the history of the twice-risen, twice-fallen London-based Polygram Filmed Entertainment, which in its heyday produced such titles as Fargo, The Usual Suspects, and Four Weddings and a Funeral.

100 Films and a Funeral

2007

Citizen B poster
6.0

Documentary on Ciby 2000, the French film production company founded by Francis Bouygues in 1990.

Citizen B

2025

The Legend of the Ugly King poster
7.0

Director Hüseyin Tabak explores the legacy of Yilmaz Güney — political dissident, convicted murderer, and visionary Kurdish filmmaker — who directed the 1982 Palme d'Or–winning Yol from inside prison and died in exile just two years later.

The Legend of the Ugly King

2017

A Day in the Life of French Cinema poster
7.0

Documentary showing one day of work of over 90 actors and filmmakers from French cinema on the same day. On 27 March 2002, 27 teams filmed actors, directors, producers and technicians at work, from Hawaii to Paris and from New York to Lisbon.

A Day in the Life of French Cinema

2002

Gian Luigi Rondi - Vita, cinema, passione poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Gian Luigi Rondi - Vita, cinema, passione

2014

Water and Sugar – Carlo Di Palma: The Colours of Life poster
5.2

An account of the life and work of legendary cinematographer and director Carlo Di Palma (1925-2004) and an emotional journey through the great moments of cinema, from Italian neorealism to the masterpieces of Woody Allen.

Water and Sugar – Carlo Di Palma: The Colours of Life

2017

Thanks for Coming poster
10.0

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.

Thanks for Coming

2026

Deauville et le rêve américain poster
NR

Reflec­tion of the soci­ety and vec­tor of the occi­den­tal cul­ture, Amer­i­can cin­e­ma influ­ences the entire world since its debuts.

Deauville et le rêve américain

2020

Truffaut / Godard, scénario d'une rupture poster
7.5

An inquiry into two of the most influencial French filmakers friendship and feud.

Truffaut / Godard, scénario d'une rupture

2016

Kiarostami at Work poster
NR

‘Kiarostami at Work’ is a documentary showcasing Abbas Kiarostami’s boundless passion for work and creativity. The film features images captured by Seifollah Samadian during their thirty years of friendship and travels together, including behind-the-scenes footage of ‘Shirin’, ‘Certified Copy’ by the late Hamideh Razavi, and ‘Taste of Cherry’ by Bahman Kiarostami.

Kiarostami at Work

2023

Behind the camera