Fernand Deligny

Famous educator Fernand Deligny tries to find ways to communicate beyond language with troubled and autistic children in his care.

A group of educators led by Fernand Deligny are working to create contact with autistic children in a hamlet of the Cevennes.

A group of educators led by Fernand Deligny are working to create contact with autistic children in a hamlet of the Cevennes.

Writer and pedagogue Fernand Deligny influenced a number of artists and French intellectuals. His work on autism influenced Deleuze and Guattari's theory of the rhizome. Francois Truffaut turned to his ideas to complete Les 400 Coups. Throughout the film Deligny plays with the possibilities of the camera to live and think closer to the human subject, offering with Le Moindre Geste a unique film to the world, one of most fascinating in French cinema. Situated [visually] between mountain western and integral neorealism, the film tells the story of two teenagers, escaped prisoners of an asylum, running away through the Cevennes.

For young Parisian boy Antoine Doinel, life is one difficult situation after another. Surrounded by inconsiderate adults, including his neglectful parents, Antoine spends his days with his best friend, Rene, trying to plan for a better life. When one of their schemes goes awry, Antoine ends up in trouble with the law, leading to even more conflicts with unsympathetic authority figures.

Fernand Deligny speaks of the object of his observation: autism. He talks about it as the researcher he is, with approximations, questions and gives us the most accurate picture possible. By successive keys, he brings us into the troubling enigma of a world without language. He puts us on the watch, with him in an unknown land. He addresses the filmmaker Renaud Victor and Renaud Victor share his dazzlement: he films intelligence at work.