Cécile Decugis

This ‘roman’ (both romance and novel) of her father is narrated by Cécile Decugis’ voice – somewhat hoarse, unsentimental and unforgiving. It is a ‘photo-roman’, a story in stills (a few cinematic shots excepted). It starts as a chronology of her father’s and mother’s lives: characters like everybody else – and thus unique. The photographs in the family album record the feeling of time past through the gradual changes in body language, in women’s dresses, in artefacts of self-representation – cars, planes.

In 2007 Cécile found the soundless negative of The Refugees (Les Refugiés), and decided to remake the film. Recording new narration, she re-evaluated the 50 year old images.

In 2007 Cécile found the soundless negative of The Refugees (Les Refugiés), and decided to remake the film. Recording new narration, she re-evaluated the 50 year old images.

In 2007 Cécile found the soundless negative of The Refugees (Les Refugiés), and decided to remake the film. Recording new narration, she re-evaluated the 50 year old images.

In 2007 Cécile found the soundless negative of The Refugees (Les Refugiés), and decided to remake the film. Recording new narration, she re-evaluated the 50 year old images.

Between 1931 and 1993, the main Renault plant occupied the whole of an island in a loop in the river Seine to the west of Paris. This was one of the most modern factories in Europe. It was also a bastion of trade-unionism, one of the major hotspots of the events of May and June 1968. Decugis’ film records a process of dismantlement, month-by-month, from April 2004 to March 2005. Demolition began at the downstream end, with the generating plant, then proceeded building by building. The camera remains on the opposite banks, filming the island from across the river. The narration pinpoints and expounds on what is being shown. By March 2005, ‘deconstruction’ is complete. Depollution lasts into 2006.

Between 1931 and 1993, the main Renault plant occupied the whole of an island in a loop in the river Seine to the west of Paris. This was one of the most modern factories in Europe. It was also a bastion of trade-unionism, one of the major hotspots of the events of May and June 1968. Decugis’ film records a process of dismantlement, month-by-month, from April 2004 to March 2005. Demolition began at the downstream end, with the generating plant, then proceeded building by building. The camera remains on the opposite banks, filming the island from across the river. The narration pinpoints and expounds on what is being shown. By March 2005, ‘deconstruction’ is complete. Depollution lasts into 2006.

Kino-eye and ciné-tract: the skippers of the inland waterways are demanding a revaluation of their services and blocking the traffic on the Seine in Paris, between the Pont Alexandre III and the Pont de la Concorde.

The last major cold snap of the twentieth century. An inventory of Paris locations: the Champ de Mars, the Invalides, the Grand Palais, the Bois de Boulogne.

Claude Ventura's documentary Chambre 12, Hotel de Suede, was made for the French television channel Arte in 1993. Ventura checks into room twelve in the hotel's final week of operation: it is demolished the day after he checks out. Room twelve was one of the principal locations for Jean-Luc Godard's New Wave masterpiece Breathless, and Ventura's documentary investigates the production of Godard's film.

A bicycle race is held every year in a pass of the Alps called Parpaillon. With the energy of a skillful cyclist perhaps as a great tribute to François, the mailman played by Tati in The Big Day, Moullet makes a comedy by pedaling at a pace that allows him to reinvent the possibilities of film gags. La Cabale des oursins is a guided tour to the northern France, transformed into a Geography lesson in the pataphysical style of an Alfred Jarry disciple.

Young actress in a man’s world. Dinner with a director. They observe people at neighbouring tables. The man’s pass comes to nothing. Then, back home, she fights with her boyfriend. Back home, there is another row, with her boyfriend.

Young actress in a man’s world. Dinner with a director. They observe people at neighbouring tables. The man’s pass comes to nothing. Then, back home, she fights with her boyfriend. Back home, there is another row, with her boyfriend.

"Nancy, Hotel de Guise, 25 November 1983"

"Nancy, Hotel de Guise, 25 November 1983"

Louise is dissatisfied with her mundane life in a bleak Parisian new-town. She rents a pied-à-terre in the city so she can experience independence.

Clotilde meets Richard whom she has not seen for a few years and who has been through a divorce. He is taking his two sons to Italy. He suggeests she join them with her own son in a house they have taken by the sea. Both this reunion and the holiday prove a disappointment,

Clotilde meets Richard whom she has not seen for a few years and who has been through a divorce. He is taking his two sons to Italy. He suggeests she join them with her own son in a house they have taken by the sea. Both this reunion and the holiday prove a disappointment,

Marion is about to divorce from her husband and takes her 15-year-old niece, Pauline, on a vacation to Granville. There, she meets an old love...

Sabine vows to give up married lovers, and is determined to find a good husband. Her best friend Clarisse introduces her to her cousin Edmond, a busy lawyer from Paris. Sabine pursues Edmond, with the encouragement of Clarisse, but Edmond does not seem very interested.

A student is devastated when he finds that his girlfriend is cheating on him. In order to find out why she did it, he decides to spy on her and her airline pilot lover. Then he sees the pilot with a blonde woman and he begins to follow them…

Recall of the events which, from 1914, favored Philippe Pétain's access to power in France in 1940.

The film chronicles Perceval's knighthood, maturation and eventual peerage amongst the Knights of the Round Table, and also contains brief episodes from the story of Gawain and the crucifixion of Christ.

Werner Schroeter's rhapsody of excess leaps from 1949 Cuba to contemporary France to points in between, while its feverishly shifting visual style evokes and parodies everything from kitschy Mexican telenovelas to silent French art films.

A German Marquise has to deal with a pregnancy she cannot explain and an infatuated Russian Count.

A semi-fictional account on the fatidic September 11, 1973, when the military commanded by General Pinochet took over the power from socialist president Salvador Allende, initiating a dictatorship that lasted until 1988 causing the deaths and disappearances of many people.

Everything starts when a journalist François decides to investigate the world of working class people. He gets into the lives of Claude, a worker and his wife Lily who has left him.

The young artist Wanda Leibovitz comes to Paris, hoping to forget unfortunate love. Soon after arrival directly at the station Wanda meets the mysterious old woman suggesting to rent at it the room (whom the old woman, allegedly, held ready for the now deceased sister). Wanda doesn't know yet that this room will change all her life shortly after it slightly opens a mysterious forbidden door.

The last of Rohmer's Six Moral Tales. Frederic leads a bourgeois life; he is a partner in a small Paris office and is happily married to Helene, a teacher expecting her second child. In the afternoons, Frederic daydreams about other women, but has no intention of taking any action. One day, Chloe, who had been a mistress of an old friend, begins dropping by his office. They meet as friends, irregularly in the afternoons, till eventually Chloe decides to seduce Frederic, causing him a moral dilemma.

On the eve of his wedding, on holiday on the Lake Annecy shore, a career diplomat visits an old acquaintance, perhaps a former girlfriend. Through her he meets an intense teenager, Laura, and then lusts after her sister, Claire. Whilst Laura attempts to flirt with him, his fantasy becomes focused on wanting to caress Claire's knee.

The rigid principles of a devout Catholic man are challenged during a one-night stay with Maud, a divorced woman with an outsize personality.

Two young women leave claustrophobic city life behind and move to a small border town. There they meet a border guard, involved in smuggling to and from the country. Both women fall for him, resulting in jealousy.

Episodes in the lives of two country girls at school in Paris and their opinions.

A family's life is transformed into an object of art.

A woman comes home from a long illness (read: a long absence). The city hasn't changed, the man she's returning to has. She will have to learn how to live all over again.

A woman comes home from a long illness (read: a long absence). The city hasn't changed, the man she's returning to has. She will have to learn how to live all over again.

Charlie is a former classical pianist who has changed his name and now plays jazz in a grimy Paris bar. When Charlie's brothers, Richard and Chico, surface and ask for Charlie's help while on the run from gangsters they have scammed, he aids their escape. Soon Charlie and Lena, a waitress at the same bar, face trouble when the gangsters arrive, looking for his brothers.

A small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he attempts to persuade a girl to run away to Italy with him.

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.

A pickup artist/womanizer named Patrick inadvertently pursues two young women who happen to be roommates.

This short features a man who is visited by his ex-lover. The moment she arrives, the man starts his constant barrage of speech; the woman doesn't say much. She just mocks the man and pretends she isn't listening. She pulls faces at him and larks about; while the man is trying his best to get her back in his life, then in the next sentence he says he hates her.

A group of young boys have a collective crush on Bernadette. As a result of this, they have an unreasoning jealousy of Gérard, and do everything they can to disrupt their relationship. When Gérard catches one of the young boys spying on them, he thrashes him severely. In retaliation, the children try to inspire Bernadette to doubt Gérard’s love.

At the time of Tunisian independence, owners of large boats decide to sell, while many small fishermen soon find themselves without work. Their wives then decide to pool their gold rings to sell them and thus buy boats.