Gérard Courant

Made up of nine long sequence shots, Hinnis is an episode of Gérard Courant's Carnets filmés which celebrates the Ain River in spring in Priay.

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In the fall of 2023, I bought a used Sony video camera from the United States with the MiniDV cassette system online. It was an old model released in February 2007! Inside the camera was a cassette with 23 minutes of recorded footage from a vacation in Mexico. It's impossible to know when these images were filmed. In 2007? In 2023? Definitely between these two dates... Vacation by Proxy is these 23 minutes of film that I then reworked by transforming the image and the sound.

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Single sequence shot panning 180° over a landscape of roubines in the region of Digne-les-Bains, in the Southern Alps.

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Les Malheurs d'Alexandre Sanine shows the ravages of time on the copy of Polikushka that Alexander Sanin made in 1919. By isolating and slowing down the most damaged parts of the copy of this film by one of the pioneers of Soviet cinema, I managed to create an object with abstract forms and, insidiously, to give another life to a leading work of art.

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Lyon 1983 is a stroll along the banks of the Saône and through Old Lyon. The film shows the Quai Saint-Vincent (seen from the Quai de Bondy), the Passerelle Saint-Vincent, Rue de la Juiverie, Rue Saint-Jean, a wedding in the Saint-Jean Cathedral, and the Passerelle Saint-Georges.

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Des eaux, petites et grandes is an episode of Gérard Courant's Carnets filmés which celebrates the element of water.

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"Lyon in 96 minutes" is, with a subjective camera and in a single sequence shot lasting one hour and 36 minutes, a stroll through the city of Lyon which begins on the Fourvière hill and its basilica and ends on the other Lyon hill, that of Croix-Rousse. Between these two summits, the film plunges into Old Lyon by taking the Chemin des Rosaires, the climb (in the direction of descent) of Chazeaux, crosses the Place Saint-Jean bordered by the cathedral of the same name which it visit, then runs along the Palais de Justice, the banks of the Saône which it crosses at the Feuillée bridge. The journey continues via rue d'Algérie, the famous Place des Terreaux with its town hall and the Palais Saint-Pierre, rue Puits Gaillot, the slopes of Croix-Rousse with its multitude of steps and staircases which lead us on the tray. The film ends on the esplanade of Boulevard de la Croix-Rousse and the Gros Caillou of ice house origin. - Gérard Courant

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"The Misfortunes of Paul Cadéac" shows the ravages of time on a copy of the film "Quai des blondes", the only realization that Paul Cadéac shot in 1954. By isolating and slowing down the most damaged photograms of the French producer's film, I managed to create an object with abstract shapes and, insidiously, to give another life to a leading artistic work. Gérard Courant

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Every Good Friday, since 1980, I have filmed the reconstruction of the Stations of the Cross of the Passion of Christ in Burzet, in an isolated village in Ardèche, where the inhabitants, for seven centuries, have dressed up to celebrate and perpetuate this religious rite. “Dis-nous ce que tu sais” is the report of the Good Friday ceremonial of the year 2023 in Burzet.

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Santorin (September 10-12, 1983) is the Carnet filmé of Gérard Courant's summer trip to the volcanic archipelago of Santorin (islands of Santorin and Nea Kameni), in Greece in 1983. The film explores these two islands at length, including Nea Kameni, located in the center of the archipelago, formed by the active part of the volcano.

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Arcipelago (August 31, 1983) is the Carnet filmé of Gérard Courant's summer trip to Greece in 1983 to Piraeus and the Aegean Sea.

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Crépuscules crétois (August 26 and 27, 1983) is the Carnet filmé of Gérard Courant's summer trip in 1983 to Greece on the southern and northern coasts of Crete, to Frangokastello, Agios Vasilios, and Hania. The film visits the Preveli Monastery in Agios Vasilios and lingers at length in the port of Hania with its monumental warships.

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Sifnos (September 1-4, 1983) is the Carnet filmé of Gérard Courant's summer trip to Greece in 1983, to the island of Sifnos, Vathy, Apollonia and Kástro.

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Esquisses Helléniques pour "A propos de la Grèce" is a filmed diary which is a summer journey through the Greece of Athens and the islands. This film served as a preparation for the feature film, A propos de la Grèce.

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Études préparatoires pour "À propos de la Grèce" is a filmed diary that is a summer journey through the Greek islands. This film served as a preparation for the feature film, À propos de la Grèce.

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"Les Malheurs d'Yvan Noé" shows the ravages of time on the film A Death Without Importance that Yvan Noé shot in 1948. By isolating and slowing down the most damaged parts of the French filmmaker's film, I managed to create a object with abstract shapes and, insidiously, to give another life to an artistic work. - Gérard Courant

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“Les Malheurs de Marc Allégret” shows the ravages of time on the rushes of the unfinished film “Les Corsaires” which Marc Allégret began filming in 1940 and which was interrupted by the Second World War. By isolating and slowing down the most damaged parts of the French filmmaker's film rushes, I managed to create an object with abstract shapes and, insidiously, give another life to a major artistic work. - Gérard Courant

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Les Funérailles d'Yvette Courant is an episode of Gérard Courant's Carnets filmés, filmed on October 25, 2022, on the occasion of the funeral of his mother, Yvette Courant, in the village of Priay in the Ain department. The film takes place successively in the small square in front of the church, inside the building with the religious ceremony, on the route that separates the church from the cemetery, at the cemetery with the burial, and in the family home in the center of the village.

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This new episode of the Notebooks is entitled The New Desert (4 March 1998 to 26 November 1998). These are years of cinematographic maturity in a world that is searching for its bearings and has not found its bearings following the collapse and disappearance of the USSR and its communist satellites. It was a period of indecision and uncertainty. Are we happy? Is one unhappy? Nobody really knows. I travel, film, watch the events that come before my camera. I travel, film, watch the events that come before my camera. But I only retain the most insignificant or the most unusual, those that do not make history but are my history. My eye lingers on what others don't look at, on the banality of things, on what television and mainstream cinema ignore.

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Histoires ordinaires is a filmed diary that covers the year 1990.

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Every year since 1980, I have filmed the Good Friday ceremony reconstructing the Passion of Christ in Burzet, a remote village in the Ardèche area, where for seven hundred years, the local people have dressed up to celebrate and perpetuate this religious rite. (Gérard Courant)

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Every year since 1980, I have filmed the Good Friday ceremony reconstructing the Passion of Christ in Burzet, a remote village in the Ardèche area, where for seven hundred years, the local people have dressed up to celebrate and perpetuate this religious rite. (Gérard Courant)

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Every year since 1980, I have filmed the Good Friday ceremony reconstructing the Passion of Christ in Burzet, a remote village in the Ardèche area, where for seven hundred years, the local people have dressed up to celebrate and perpetuate this religious rite. (Gérard Courant)

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Every year since 1980, I have filmed the Good Friday ceremony reconstructing the Passion of Christ in Burzet, a remote village in the Ardèche area, where for seven hundred years, the local people have dressed up to celebrate and perpetuate this religious rite. (Gérard Courant)

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Les Malheurs de Georges Méliès shows the ravages of time on a copy of a Georges Méliès film. By isolating and slowing down the most damaged parts of the copy of the film by one of the main inventors of special effects in cinema, I managed to create an object with abstract forms and, insidiously, give a new life to a major work of art.

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Every year since 1980, I have filmed the Good Friday ceremony reconstructing the Passion of Christ in Burzet, a remote village in the Ardèche area, where for seven hundred years, the local people have dressed up to celebrate and perpetuate this religious rite. (Gérard Courant)

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Across the city, a Canadian megalopolis, Gérard Courant's images, blurred and faded, write the sound of Kraftwerck. Synthetic, techno... it illustrates movement, speed, rhythm. From the woods on the outskirts to the large, wide avenues, passers-by see the big cars go by. Night follows day, in the big city, pedestrians are anonymous.

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Le Nouvel Hiver is a slightly disillusioned reflection on the state of the world (the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the USSR, the Gulf War), the events of which are the thread of this year's Notebooks (1 January 1991 to 31 December 1991). Of course, these Notebooks are far from this sinister current events because life is elsewhere, in creation and in a quest for the absolute. And then, Le Nouvel Hiver takes us into surprising encounters (with Ken Loach, Brigitte Lahaie) and transports us to places I can't live without (the Ardèche in the North).

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"A Debate Across the Universe" is, on the one hand, the capture of the debate which followed the world premiere screening of my film "Across the Universe", presented as part of the "Ethnology and Cinema" in Grenoble, at the Les Méliès cinema in Saint-Marcellin and, on the other hand, the criticism of this debate and additional information relating to the staging of "Across the Universe".

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"Autour de Vent-Pire" is a documentary recounting the shooting of "Vent-Pire", the vampire film that Gérard Courant shot on November 12, 1970 at the Porte du Diable in the Pasques forest in Plombières-lès-Dijon.

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This episode of the Carnets filmés, shot in Mexico, is largely devoted to Barbara Peón Solis's photographic exhibition, entitled Como Buda te Veras, which was held in Querétaro. Beyond this artistic event, Exposición (Journal du Mexique) is a stroll through Mexico City and an unusual exploration of the Teotihuacan pyramid site.

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This film is an audio interview of Louis Skorecki, filmmaker and film critic for Cahiers du cinéma, by Patrice Kirchhofer and Gérard Courant. This interview, later put into images by Gérard Courant, is centred around the feature film Eugénie de Franval, based on Sade's novella, which Louis Skorecki shot in 1974 and which was awarded the prize of "la porte entrouverte" at the festival of young cinema in Toulon in 1975 by the jury composed of Marguerite Duras, Shuji Terayama and Dominique Noguez.

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This unofficial Cinématon is one of two that Gérard Courant filmed on January 25, 2001. The second Cinématon, filmed in a tighter cinematic frame on the same day as his other non-collection Cinématon, is called Encore cinématé!

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Encore Cinématé ! is a fake Cinématon by Gérard Courant, the author and designer of this famous film series. It is not part of the anthology and is therefore out of collection. However, he has all the characteristics of an official Cinématon but the filmmaker, who had just lent himself to the cinematon game a year earlier, on the occasion of the 2000th portrait of his collection, did not want to overload his fetish series with new portraits of him. He preferred not to integrate it while ensuring that this portrait has a real existence, that it is visible and that it is a film in its own right.

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Autour de 24 Passions is the making-of of my film 24 Passions . It was shot in 2003, on the occasion of the 24th year of filming this film on the Stations of the Cross of Burzet, in Ardèche. (Gérard Courant)

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The filming of Joseph Morder's Cinématon n°1968.

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The Jeu de Paume in Paris (France) presented an Oscar Muñoz exhibition from June 3 to September 21, 2014. On the occasion of this exhibition, Marina Vinyes Albes organized a special evening on July 1, 2014 entitled "Becoming in the Moment, the Time of the Gesture" where 6 Screen Tests by Andy Warhol, 5 Cinématons by Gérard Courant and Galaxie by Gregory Markopoulos were screened.

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Zones césariennes (which covers the year 2002) is one of Gérard Courant's Filmed Notebooks shot on film. These episodes now coexist with their counterparts filmed on videotape. They are two films with parallel lives but opposing destinies, colliding and eyeing each other warily. They represent two approaches, two styles, two different ways of understanding cinema. Two methods for unfolding time, grasping memory, and exploring the world.

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Le Ciné-Club Universitaire de Dijon is the recording of this radio programme - a first for Gérard Courant - which allows him to talk about some of the films that are close to his heart: The Death of Maria Malibran by Werner Schroeter, La Cicatrice intérieure by Philippe Garrel, Hotel Monterey and Jeanne Dielman 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles by Chantal Akerman, La Chinoise (The Chinese) by Jean-Luc Godard, Né by Jacques Richard.

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This distinctly personal journey into the artistic possibilities of independent film is not to be missed. Jonas Mekas, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Robert Kramer and many other visionaries and mavericks of the silver screen – as well as a book seller, a critic and a psychoanalyst – discuss what cinema has meant to them, what it is and what it could be and, implicitly, how it has changed over the 18 years in which this film was shot. Director Boris Lehman leads the charge, drawing in moments of absurdist humour and inventive camera work; he keeps things raw and spontaneous. His encounters with the now much-missed Jean Rouch and Stephen Dwoskin are particularly touching and stand testament to their personal playfulness and candour. An engaging, absorbing, epic odyssey of a movie.

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The mix of my films with Ari Boulogne: Ari Boulogne, Cinématon number 2735, Ari Boulogne and Marie-Hélène Raby, Couple number 139 and Les Amis d’Ari Boulogne, Portrait de groupe number 252, filmed on May 31, 2013.

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On the occasion of the passing of Marcel Hanoun, Gérard Courant wanted to pay tribute to this companion whom he had known since 1975 by accompanying him with the song Avec le temps by Léo Ferré.

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This film is a recording of my radio interview with film critic Heike Hurst on the program Le Manège on April 2, 2008, on Radio Libertaire. The program covered the retrospective of films by Jean Cocteau and Derek Jarman at the Magic Cinema in Bobigny, as well as my film Dresde de sang et de feu.

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Patrick Deval, known as Bambou, the author of the cult film Acéphale, is celebrating his birthday.

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Direction Sud-Est follows L'Anniversaire de Bambou, the previous installment in Gérard Courant's Carnets filmés. It revisits some of the themes that made the earlier parts so charming: a passion for small towns and villages teeming with life (a market day in Saint-Marcellin) or deserted (Visan, Brignon), the importance of nature, an interest in the most mundane things (the sequence of magazine covers in a Saint-Marcellin newsstand), a love of animals (cats, dogs, horses), and interactions with artists (the actress Rosette, the journalist Frédéric Chaleil) through their daily lives.

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Périssable paradis II (Notes pour un monde nouveau) is therefore the result of an anachronism. Indeed, it benefited from funding that I never requested, whereas many of my films were produced without any financial assistance, even though I did everything I could to secure it!

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"Lyon in 96 minutes" is, with a subjective camera and in a single sequence shot lasting one hour and 36 minutes, a stroll through the city of Lyon which begins on the Fourvière hill and its basilica and ends on the other Lyon hill, that of Croix-Rousse. Between these two summits, the film plunges into Old Lyon by taking the Chemin des Rosaires, the climb (in the direction of descent) of Chazeaux, crosses the Place Saint-Jean bordered by the cathedral of the same name which it visit, then runs along the Palais de Justice, the banks of the Saône which it crosses at the Feuillée bridge. The journey continues via rue d'Algérie, the famous Place des Terreaux with its town hall and the Palais Saint-Pierre, rue Puits Gaillot, the slopes of Croix-Rousse with its multitude of steps and staircases which lead us on the tray. The film ends on the esplanade of Boulevard de la Croix-Rousse and the Gros Caillou of ice house origin. - Gérard Courant

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Every Good Friday, since 1980, I have filmed the reconstruction of the Stations of the Cross of the Passion of Christ in Burzet, in an isolated village in Ardèche, where the inhabitants, for seven centuries, have dressed up to celebrate and perpetuate this religious rite. “Dis-nous ce que tu sais” is the report of the Good Friday ceremonial of the year 2023 in Burzet.

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Santorin (September 10-12, 1983) is the Carnet filmé of Gérard Courant's summer trip to the volcanic archipelago of Santorin (islands of Santorin and Nea Kameni), in Greece in 1983. The film explores these two islands at length, including Nea Kameni, located in the center of the archipelago, formed by the active part of the volcano.

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Arcipelago (August 31, 1983) is the Carnet filmé of Gérard Courant's summer trip to Greece in 1983 to Piraeus and the Aegean Sea.

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Crépuscules crétois (August 26 and 27, 1983) is the Carnet filmé of Gérard Courant's summer trip in 1983 to Greece on the southern and northern coasts of Crete, to Frangokastello, Agios Vasilios, and Hania. The film visits the Preveli Monastery in Agios Vasilios and lingers at length in the port of Hania with its monumental warships.

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Sifnos (September 1-4, 1983) is the Carnet filmé of Gérard Courant's summer trip to Greece in 1983, to the island of Sifnos, Vathy, Apollonia and Kástro.

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Les Funérailles d'Yvette Courant is an episode of Gérard Courant's Carnets filmés, filmed on October 25, 2022, on the occasion of the funeral of his mother, Yvette Courant, in the village of Priay in the Ain department. The film takes place successively in the small square in front of the church, inside the building with the religious ceremony, on the route that separates the church from the cemetery, at the cemetery with the burial, and in the family home in the center of the village.

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Every year since 1980, I have filmed the Good Friday ceremony reconstructing the Passion of Christ in Burzet, a remote village in the Ardèche area, where for seven hundred years, the local people have dressed up to celebrate and perpetuate this religious rite. (Gérard Courant)

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Every year since 1980, I have filmed the Good Friday ceremony reconstructing the Passion of Christ in Burzet, a remote village in the Ardèche area, where for seven hundred years, the local people have dressed up to celebrate and perpetuate this religious rite. (Gérard Courant)

Open details →

Every year since 1980, I have filmed the Good Friday ceremony reconstructing the Passion of Christ in Burzet, a remote village in the Ardèche area, where for seven hundred years, the local people have dressed up to celebrate and perpetuate this religious rite. (Gérard Courant)

Open details →

Every year since 1980, I have filmed the Good Friday ceremony reconstructing the Passion of Christ in Burzet, a remote village in the Ardèche area, where for seven hundred years, the local people have dressed up to celebrate and perpetuate this religious rite. (Gérard Courant)

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Every year since 1980, I have filmed the Good Friday ceremony reconstructing the Passion of Christ in Burzet, a remote village in the Ardèche area, where for seven hundred years, the local people have dressed up to celebrate and perpetuate this religious rite. (Gérard Courant)

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The Misfortunes of Luis Buñuel shows the ravages of time on the rushes of the film The Golden Age that Luis Buñuel shot in 1930. By isolating and slowing down the most damaged parts of the rushes of the Spanish master's film, I managed to to create an object with abstract shapes and, insidiously, to give another life to a leading artistic work.

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Le Passeur immobile, which covers the year 1987, is a Booklet filmed stuck between The Days and the Nights (1986) and The Artifice and the Fake (1988). These Notebooks have been punctuating my activity as a filmmaker for about fifteen years. They are like a life parallel to my other films and film series (Cinema, Group Portrait, Read, etc.). They are also like a letter to the spectators.

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I give a methodical account of my film work: the creation of new series (Lire, Trio, Avec Mariola), the shooting of a new feature film (Amours décolorées which will take ten years to edit) with Mariola San Martin.

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Boulevard Saint-Germain shows the clash between Paris high school students and the police on the legendary Latin Quarter thoroughfare on the day of Mardi Gras.

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Rue de Rennes in Paris, February 11, 1984. A ceaseless ballet of motor vehicles and passersby create a hypnotic choreography.

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Ventus is a film made up of a single, half-hour-long, fixed sequence shot that shows the effects of wind on trees in the village of Priay, in the Ain department.

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Pluvia is a film made up of a single fixed sequence shot, half an hour long, which shows a storm and rain in the village of Priay, in the Ain department.

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Imagine in oglinda is a film made up of a single fixed sequence shot, lasting 4 minutes, which shows the reflections of the sun on the branches of shrubs which line the Ain River in Priay.

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Castellum medievalevale is a film made up of a single fixed sequence shot, about ten minutes long, filmed with a telephoto lens, from the heights of the commune of Priay, in the Ain department, which shows the Château des Allymes. (As the crow flies, these two places are separated by 11 kilometers).

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Flumen is a film made up of a single fixed sequence shot, lasting 4 minutes, which shows the Ain River at the height of the Priay bridge.

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Lacus is a film made up of a single fixed sequence shot, about thirty minutes long, which shows the communal lake of the village of Priay, in the Ain department, dug out of old gravel pits, on the left bank of the Ain river.

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Berlin-Ouest – Berlin-Est is a photo-novel ("photorama" according to the credits) by Gérard Courant which takes place in January 1984 in West and East Berlin on the sidelines of a retrospective of the filmmaker's films at the Arsenal cinema in West Berlin.

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This episode of the Filmed Diaries shows behind-the-scenes footage from the filming of 24 Passions . It was filmed in 2003 to mark the 24th anniversary of filming this documentary about the Burzet pilgrimage. The first part shows the deserted Stations of the Cross filmed a few days before the procession. The second part, with Richard Copans behind the camera, shows me filming the procession on Good Friday. The final part is my own footage, only a fragment of which was chosen for inclusion in my film 24 Passions . (Gérard Courant)

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Ombres de silence is a photo-novel (“photorama” according to the credits) in saturated black and white which takes place in the spring of 1974 in Lyon, Place des Terreaux, on the banks of the Saône and in the districts of Croix-Rousse and Saint-Jean.

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"Le Fantôme des Arcades" is the story of a series of appearances of a ghost, performed by Christian Clément, who haunts the Corcelles-les-Monts plateau in the Dijon region. The ghost appears several times in front of a mushroom picker, played by Daniel Petit, terrified by these multiple appearances.

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"A Debate Across the Universe" is, on the one hand, the capture of the debate which followed the world premiere screening of my film "Across the Universe", presented as part of the "Ethnology and Cinema" in Grenoble, at the Les Méliès cinema in Saint-Marcellin and, on the other hand, the criticism of this debate and additional information relating to the staging of "Across the Universe".

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"Autour de Vent-Pire" is a documentary recounting the shooting of "Vent-Pire", the vampire film that Gérard Courant shot on November 12, 1970 at the Porte du Diable in the Pasques forest in Plombières-lès-Dijon.

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"Rêveries d'un escaladeur solitaire" is a tribute to "Goupi Mains Rouges", the film Jacques Becker shot in 1943 during the Occupation. The main character of "Rêveries d'un escaladeur solitaire" which takes over the role of Tonkin from Becker's film, played by Robert Le Vigan, is perched on top of a tree. Out of the picture and shouting his hatred of society, he contemplates and insults the members of the Goupi family, sitting at the foot of the tree, who implore him to come down from his observation post.

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