Josée Deshaies

Movies

The Beast
Director of Photography
In a near future where artificial intelligence reigns supreme, human emotions have become a threat. To get rid of them, Gabrielle must purify her DNA by going back into her past lives. There, she reunites with Louis, her great love. But she’s overcome by fear, a premonition that catastrophe is on the way.
Passages
Director of Photography
In contemporary Paris, German filmmaker Tomas embraces his sexuality through a torrid love affair with a young woman named Agathe, an impulse that blurs the lines which define his relationship with his husband, Martin. When Martin begins an extramarital affair of his own, he successfully gains back his husband’s attention while simultaneously unearthing Tomas’ jealousy. Grappling with contradicting emotions, Tomas must either embrace the confines of his marriage or come to terms with the relationship having run its course.
The Salamander
Director of Photography
Paralysed by fear of the future, a middle aged French bureaucrat escapes to Brazil where a destructive affair with a boy forces her to learn to live in the present.
Continental Drift (South)
Director of Photography
Nathalie Adler is on a mission for the EU in Sicily. She organizes the next visit of Macron and Merkel to a migrant camp. Their presence has a high symbolic value to show that everything is under control. But who still wants to believe in this European family on the verge of a nervous breakdown? Probably not Albert, Nathalie's son, an NGO activist who arrives without warning. He, moreover, no longer believes in his mother.
Babysitter
Director of Photography
After a sexist joke goes viral, Cédric loses his job and embarks on a therapeutic journey to free himself from sexism and misogyny. He and his girlfriend hire a mysterious and liberated babysitter to help shake things up.
Memory Box
Cinematography
Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia sent to her best friend from 1980’s Beirut. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother’s tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.
Les fils
Director of Photography
Big Giant Wave
Director of Photography
Big Giant Wave is an ode to music, the invisible abstract and fleeting sequence of sounds that creates in the brain the same reaction as chocolate, sex, or drugs.
A Brother’s Love
Cinematography
Sophia, a brilliant doctoral student, has always maintained a symbiotic relationship with her brother Karim. The arrival of a new lover in Karim’s life significantly alters their dynamic.
Birthmarked
Cinematography
Two scientists raise three children contrarily to their genetic tendencies in order to prove the ultimate power of nurture over nature.
A.W. A Portrait of Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Director of Photography
Canadian actor and filmmaker Connor Jessup (Closet Monster, Falling Skies) profiles Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a maverick of Thai cinema who explores the slippery nature of time and consciousness with a sublimely idiosyncratic, often surreal approach to film form.
Lira's Forest
Director of Photography
As the end of her life approaches, an old woman encounters a strange spirit from a nearby forest.
Nelly
Director of Photography
A high-class prostitute by choice, Nelly Arcan’s colorful life is recreated in a multi-layered and stylish mix of make-believe and memoir, revealing Nelly’s alter egos: the neurotic writer, the vulnerable lover, the call girl and the star. Nelly shocked the literary world with her elegant writing and the lurid details of sex work in her autobiographical first novel, Whore, which became a critically acclaimed bestseller. Despite unprecedented success, Nelly’s remarkable life ended in tragedy.
Lamb
Director of Photography
When an Ethiopian boy moves in with distant relatives he takes his pet sheep with him but the upcoming holidays spell danger for his beloved friend.
Endorphine
Director of Photography
Twelve-year-old Simone feels painfully disconnected from the world after witnessing the brutal death of her mother. Simone, a solitary multimedia artist in her twenties, is struggling to control her crushing panic attacks and keep her day job in an underground parking lot. And Simone, a sixty-year-old physicist, is giving a conference on the nature of time. The three Simones' lives are intertwined in a labyrinthine meta-world where timeframes overlap, characters multiply, and storylines repeat and expand. But, for all its shuttling forward and back through time, ENDORPHINE remains grounded in the Simones' inner lives — it's an artistic examination of scientific phenomena that also poignantly explores how people deal with trauma.
Saint Laurent
Director of Photography
1967-1976. As one of history's greatest fashion designers entered a decade of freedom, neither came out of it in one piece.
I, Kamikaze
Director of Photography
Hayashi Fujio, a 90-year-old veteran, narrates his memories from World War II, when he volunteered for the very first kamikaze operation planned by the Japanese Imperial Army.
Jacky in the Kingdom of Women
Cinematography
The film is set in a world, the Popular Democratic Republic of Bubunne, in which women hold the power and men are forced to wear veils and stay at home.
An Extraordinary Person
Director of Photography
A 30 year-old scholar, intelligent and beautiful yet socially crippled, is forced to attend a bachelorette party where her quest for authenticity leads to an unavoidable confrontation with old acquaintances.
Headwinds
Director of Photography
Sarah tells Paul that she wants out of their marriage; the next day she disappears. A year later and Paul along with their children return to his childhood town to start anew after the loss of his wife and their mother.
House of Pleasures
Director of Photography
A young woman begins a new life at the Apollonide bordello, a high-class brothel in Paris at the turn of the 20th century.
The Edge
Director of Photography
Curling
Director of Photography
Set in a rural Québec village in the dead of winter, Jean-François, a single father, works at a deserted bowling alley at night and in a rundown motel during the day. His daughter, Julyvonne never leaves their home. Jean-François isolates her in fear that contact with the outside world will scar her the way it has him.
Rebecca H. (Return to the Dogs)
Director of Photography
Filmmaker Lodge Kerrigan makes a self-referential movie about a fictional attempt to make a Grace Slick biopic.
Yuki & Nina
Director of Photography
When Yuki finds out that her parents are separating and she is moving to Japan with her mother, she and her best friend Nina devise ways to reunite the feuding adults.
Where the Boys Are
Cinematography
A few girls in an apartment. Across the street men are building a mosque.
On War
Director of Photography
Bertrand (Mathieu Amalric), a film director, is conducting research for his latest film, and asks a funeral director if he can stay back at his funeral parlour after the close of business. Bertrand cannot resist getting into a coffin, and accidentally knocks the lid down, locking himself in the coffin.
24 Bars
Director of Photography
It is Christmas Eve. Separated from her young son, Helly struggles for money. A solitary man, Didier pays her to play his fiancée for the night. But the act comes to a tragic end. Left stunned, Helly meets Marie, who takes her in, on her way to the coast. There they encounter Chris. All three will end the night together. It’s their last move in joy and perdition.
My New Picture
Director of Photography
A woman wearing a pair of headphones listens to music. Using their eyes and ears, the audience shares this sensory experience through the mental pictures generated by the music.
Jeunesse d'Hamlet
Director of Photography
Cindy, the Doll Is Mine
Director of Photography
Cindy, the doll is mine is a short film by French director Bertrand Bonello. It stars Italian actress Asia Argento in the double role of photographer Cindy Sherman, a brunette, and her model, a blonde who strangely resemble one another. The film was screened out of competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.
Invisible
Director of Photography
A budding electronica artist gives up his shot at stardom to pursue a woman from a telephone dating network.
Baby Jesus
Director of Photography
This is the story of a miracle that never happened... This is the story of a family... This is the story of my disabled brother... In fact, I think it's the story of a storm... I was 11 when my brother was born. It was August 30, 1977. It was the first time I saw my father cry. It was necessary to pray and above all, to be very wise. That's when my dad stopped talking and my mom stopped laughing.
Tiresia
Cinematography
Based on the legend of Tiresias, it tells of a transsexual who is kidnapped by a man and left to die in the woods. She is then saved by a family and receives the gift of telling the future.
The Pornographer
Director of Photography
Jacques Laurent made pornographic films in the 1970s and '80s, but had put that aside for 20 years. His artistic ideas, born of the '60s counter-culture, had elevated the entire genre. Older and paunchier, he is now directing a porno again. Jacques's artistry clashes with his financially-troubled producer's ideas about shooting hard-core sex. Jacques has been estranged from his son Joseph for years, since the son first learned the nature of the family business. They are now speaking again. Joseph and his friends want to recapture the idealism of 1968 with a protest. Separated from his wife, Jacques strives for personal renewal with plans to build a new house by himself...
The Left-Hand Side of the Fridge
Cinematography
Christophe agrees to be filmed by his roommate Stéphane, while he is searching for a meaningful engineering job. Since he voluntarily resigned his job when he was to be moved to quality control, he does not get unemployment benefits, and goes to classes on how to contest the decision.
Something Organic
Cinematography
Marguerite has been married to Paul for five years; miraculously the molecules in their pairing are still at work. Except for one thing: they live in Montreal, and molecules do not like the cold.
The Adventures of James and David
Cinematography
James visits his young brother David who has just opened a hairdressing salon. the two brothers do not agree on how to become a successful hairdesser.