Philippe Pavans de Ceccatty

Movies

L'escalier de fer
Director of Photography
A meek, mild-mannered man begins to suspect that his beautiful wife is poisoning him after he realizes that his acute stomach aches occur only after he eats at home. As a result, he investigates the death of his predecessor-- his wife's first husband.
Brother and Sister
Cinematography
A 50-something lawyer's solitary life is upended when he discovers he has a 15-year-old half sister!
School's Out
Director of Photography
A few days before the baccalaureate, a high school student decides to settle accounts with the most cowardly teacher in the school.
Once Upon an Angel
Cinematography
A grief-stricken man who just lost his mother has a one night stand with a maid. What he doesn't know is that she's a virgin. He returns to his sad world of perfume business while she, unable to forget her first lover, follows him.
Second life
Camera Operator
Vansan is 30 years old, but he never learned to make decisions. Whatever it is. Should he marry his girlfriend, should he start a business with his friend, what color should he buy shoes for? Life for him is an eternal dilemma. But one day, fate made a choice for him. Vansan crashes into an advertising post by car and makes a leap in time for 16 years in advance. Now at about forty, he heads a large corporation, is married to a woman with whom he is barely familiar, has a teenage son who is constantly bold to him, and an early-ripened daughter. And he has absolutely no idea what to do with all this. Realizing that he has become everything that he always despised, Vansan is desperate to go back and make the right choice. But can he turn back the clock? ..
Le conte du ventre plein
Cinematography
Maverick director Melvin Van Peebles translates his own satirical novel to the screen with this multi-national portrait of race, class, and hypocrisy. The film's title refers to the name of a haute cuisine restaurant run by a self-satisfied conservative couple, Henri and Loretta. When the two find themselves overworked in the kitchen, they retreat to the local orphanage to find some cheap waitressing help, and the teenaged Diamantine fits the bill perfectly. The haughty couple has more plans for the girl than just waiting tables, however -- the conspicuously accommodating Henri and Loretta are actually bad-mouthing the girl behind her back to the townspeople and the restaurant's patrons. They go so far as to ask the naive Diamantine to pretend that she's pregnant, and she complies under the assumption that it's a harmless prank. When their intentions are revealed, however, the girl becomes wise to the couple's self-satisfied scheming, and sets her sights on revenge.
XXL
Camera Operator
Tunisian-Jewish businessman Alain Berrebi (Michel Boujenah) courts Ashkenazi princess Arlette Stern (Elsa Zylberstein). Her father David (Maurice Chevit) learns of the death of a rural Auvergne peasant who once hid David and his cousin Nathan (Felix Fibich) from the Nazis. Nathan is now a NYC diamond dealer on West 47th Street. David, Nathan, Arlette, and Berrebi head for the funeral in Auvergne. There they encounter the deceased peasant's son, Jean Bourdalou (Gerard Depardieu), who operates the family's restaurants in Paris. Arlette does a romantic take on Bourdalou, which sends the distraught Berrebi off to cry on the shoulder of his mother Gaby (Gina Lollobrigida). Back in Paris, Bourdalou and Berrebi make plans to open a trendy fashion restaurant in Manhattan.
Men, Women: A User's Manual
Director of Photography
Benoit Blanc loves living, he loves women, he loves daring. He is a famous businessman who suffers from stomach-ache. Fabiolini, a would-be actor, is a policeman and he too suffers from the same sickness. The two man face suffering in opposite ways: Benoit Blanc is optimistic while Fabiolini, always unsure of himself, is persuaded he is seriously ill. The two men meet by chance while doing a gastroscopy and become friends. After having known their real different conditions, they will change and will understand better their lives. Around them, other people, women and men, will see their lives changed, by chance, by love or solely by the life stream.
L'échappée belle
Director of Photography
An aviation magnate takes desperate measures to regain custody of his kids after he is granted minimal visitation rights by a harsh female judge. It's true that Manu Barnes is free-spirited and for much of his twelve year marriage to Mathilde that he has been too centered on his career, but he does love his kids and believes he should see them more often than one weekend a month. The judge called him irresponsible and he decides to disprove her words by kidnapping Chloe, the judge's strong-willed adolescent daughter. He takes the girl to a remote, snow-bound mountain cabin. Unfortunately, she thinks Manu is sexually attracted to her. A disaster nearly occurs there, but Chloe manages to get back to Paris. Though he knows a private detective is trailing him, the determined Manu decides to abduct his kids and take them out of the country.
Les Miserables
Director of Photography
In France during World War II, a poor and illiterate man, Henri Fortin (Jean-Paul Belmondo), is introduced to Victor Hugo's classic novel Les Misérables and begins to see parallels between the book and his own life.
The Hairdresser's Husband
First Assistant Camera
The film begins in a flashback from the titular character, Antoine. We are introduced to his fixation with female hairdressers which began at a young age. The film uses flashbacks throughout and there are frequent parallels drawn with the past. We are unsure what Antoine has done with his life, however we know he has fulfilled his childhood ambition, to marry a haidresser.