Alain Cavalier

Jacquotte : Once a year, in July, on the way to vacation, Jacquotte relives her childhood for a few hours in her beloved parents' home, which has remained intact. They died long ago, but nothing has been touched in the house. One day, it may be necessary to sell it. Daniel : Before leaving his apartment, Daniel checks ten times that he's closed the windows and turned off the taps properly. Obsessed by cleanliness, washing his hands is a whole ritual. He goes down to the café to try his luck with scratch cards. In the past, he was a very talented filmmaker, before giving it up. Why does he never want to talk about it ? He jokes and moves on to another subject.

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Léon : This morning, Léon the shoe-repairer puts up a sign in his store that he's managed for forty-six years : "Closing down in two months." Panic sets in among the neighborhood inhabitants, who adore this big-hearted Armenian with an amazing face. Is there some way to make stay longer ? Guillaume : Four o'clock in the morning, Guillaume arrives at work first, ahead of his team. At the end of the day, he will have sold all his cakes and bread, that's how good they are. In the evening, he and his wife Jasmine dream of buying a bigger and better located pastry store.

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Each morning, Bartabas works with his favorite horse, Caravage. They share a silent conversation in which they guide each other. Will they reach a certain perfection which will allow them to perform before the public ? The filmmaker has been given access to witness this intimate relationship: health hiccups, sessions that don't work out and the questioning they lead to, perfecting the act, tasting the joy of a flawless performance. As the film goes by, a trio comes to life, where hearts beat as one. The spectator will perhaps make the trio a quartet.

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Cavalier Express offers a new reading of eight short films by Alain Cavalier, conceived and presented in the form of a unique story. A look of the filmmaker on his contemporaries, but also on his own cinematographic approach which, from the 60s to today, has continued to evolve towards a refinement, a stripping, always in the pleasure of filming. Past and present collide, overlap and nourish each other in this new opus of the Une mémoire en courts collection.

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"Since childhood, I've had the good fortune of going through two mini depressions of happiness, and I'm serenely awaiting the third. This alone is enough for me to believe in a certain beauty to life and to have the pleasure of attempting to film it in all its forms (trees, animals, gods, humans...) and to do so when love is intense. The filmmaker has lost a part of innocence. It's so difficult to spot it around you, so difficult not to lose it during a film shoot. I'm grateful to those who you look at on screen. To stand up to time, I've a tactic, which is to dig into my stock of emotions and old images. Not so as to find what will never come back, but to discover the signs of spring in winter. This allows me to begin another day with an easy, light step." (Alain Cavalier)

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Thibault de Chateauvieux - La Pie Rouge - Pascal Blaise - Marie Bornat - Miles Davis - Clint et Kyle Eastwood - Zoé Chantre - George Bush - Finale

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During a year, they would meet and film each other. The filmmaker and the actor, the President and his prime minister, Alain Cavalier and Vincent Lindon. In Pater, you will see them in real life and in the fiction that they invented together.

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A short film made by Alain Cavalier for the 2010 dvd release of ‘Le Combat Dans L’ile’.

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In a film as moving as a confession, the filmmaker portrays a veritable journey into the valley of the shadows to find Irène, his Eurydice.

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Alain Cavalier's contribution to 2009's Haiku project

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Through the public and private toilets that he has enjoyed filming over fifteen years, Alain Cavalier evokes our daily lives which are less trivial than they would appear.

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From his diary, filmed over ten years, filmmaker Alain Cavalier invites us to a meditation on old age, weakness and death. Made of moments of life, fragments of images, this film composes a mosaic where the spectator is invited to also find his place by himself...

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"I have been lucky enough to be able to film the cleaning and restoration work on a painting by Pierre Bonnard: Nu dans la baignoire. I completely inhabited this canvas. It drew me to it and allowed me to record the palpable cinematic evidence of Bonnard's art of painting. It has led me along the hidden path of his private life." (Alain Cavalier)

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René, a children's theater performer, has a problem : he is a hearty eater and he weighs no less than 155 kilos. After being abandoned by his girlfriend, René decides to go on a diet, notably to reconquer her. It is also an opportunity for him to question his former lifestyle and to define new values...

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"If I get along well with someone, if I am attracted to what that person does, then I have an annoying tendency to desire to film that person. I get rejected or not. It sometimes happens that ones has a change of heart after saying yes. The shoot can last years or simply an afternoon. So I stock a lot of films that I edit, that I abandon or eventually take up again. And then, simple pleasure in the middle of disorder, four films come together merely to form one. Without any of the persons who make up the ensemble ever meeting." (Alain Cavalier)

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"Since a long time I have been linked to the painter Georges de La Tour. His paintings helped me in making my films. Even more, in a precise way they crossed my personal life. The film I shot about La Tour is about that : an intimate emotion followed by the love for the works of La Tour. [...] Georges de La Tour's paintings (it remains 30) are fixed images gifted of a rare radiation and density in the history of human labour. It happens that me, a film-maker, with my movement of twenty four images per second, I am a little jealous of this completion." (Alain Cavalier)

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A filmmaker meets a woman. Delicately, he starts videoing moments of their life together. He slowly realises he’s not storing memories, but making a film. He asks her permission to continue. After filming for a year, a 75-minute edit is ready…

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During a year, they would meet and film each other. The filmmaker and the actor, the President and his prime minister, Alain Cavalier and Vincent Lindon. In Pater, you will see them in real life and in the fiction that they invented together.

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Joseph Morder begins to film his life with a cell phone and thus begins to realize some life-changing experiences in attempts to discover a new film language

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From his diary, filmed over ten years, filmmaker Alain Cavalier invites us to a meditation on old age, weakness and death. Made of moments of life, fragments of images, this film composes a mosaic where the spectator is invited to also find his place by himself...

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Roger Diamantis owns the Saint-André-des-Arts cinema in Paris. His discovery of the 7th art, his vocation to own a cinema where he could show films that resembled him, and his years in the restoration business to achieve this… He recalls his early days, talks about the filmmakers who found their place with him, and his film “Si j'te cherche, j'me trouve”.

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A “Cinéma, de notre temps” series episode directed by french filmmaker Jean-Pierre Limosin, originally aired 26 January 1996.

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Marcello Mastroianni, Isabelle Adjani, Alain Delon, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen... the biggest stars in cinema were welcomed by Christian Defaye on his show Spécial cinéma. Between intimate confessions from actors and immersion in the world of the greatest filmmakers, Christian Defaye took viewers on a journey into the fascinating world of cinema for nearly thirty years.

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In this drama that alludes to the Algerian War with France of the 1960s, Thomas is a deserter from the French Foreign Legion who is on the run from authorities. He helps damsel in distress Dominique, who has been taken hostage by a group of terrorists. Thomas is wounded but manages to escape after killing the guard who inflicted the injury. Dominique gives Thomas money to escape to France after he secures her freedom, but he is caught between the Foreign Legion and the terrorists seeking revenge.

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René, a children's theater performer, has a problem : he is a hearty eater and he weighs no less than 155 kilos. After being abandoned by his girlfriend, René decides to go on a diet, notably to reconquer her. It is also an opportunity for him to question his former lifestyle and to define new values...

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"In this film you will see a woman's handkerchief tied around a man's wrist, a well-shaven pig's head, some adolescents who are more inventive than their elders in struggling against oppression... You will not, however, hear any dialog. Words do not prepare, do not accompany, do not comment upon the action. This is not a silent film, but a film in which the only moment of life retained for the cinematographic spectacle are those where people do not speak. The spectator will find, perhaps, a greater freedom of interpretation in it and, we hope, a particular pleasure in this." (Alain Cavalier)

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An enchanting mini-portrait of Antoinette, an 86½-year-old magician. Clad in a dress coat and white satin top hat, the elegant Parisienne performs ostensibly simple tricks with astonishing sleight-of-hand. With no more than a napkin, tissue paper or a rain of plastic flowers, Antoinette conjures up a hopeful universe.

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"These portraits are encounters I wanted to be kept from oblivion, even if it is only while you are watching them. They are women who work, who have children, and who, at the same time, keep their independence of mind. I shot 24 portraits of 13 minutes each. I have chosen this short running time for several reasons: not becoming a bother, escape tv adds cuts, shoot the movie quickly, in one pace and without too many scratches. I am not a documentaries maker. I am more like a faces, hands and things lover. To show reality is not my goal. “Reality” is just a word, just like its twin sister “fiction”, which I practice as well, but with a different delight." (Alain Cavalier)

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The life of little St. Therese of Lisieux, depicted in minimalist vignettes. Therese and her sisters are all nuns in a Carmelite convent. Her devotion to Jesus and her concept of "the little way" to God are shown clearly, using plain modern language. A sense of angelic simplicity comes across without fancy lights, choirs, or showy miracles.

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A man walks a length of railroad track, looking for his elderly mother whom he believes fell from the train at some point. He brings his daughter along.

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A loving couple Martin and Lea have some problems with each other too.

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When a young auto salesman is forced to give up a vacation with his wife in order to drive a big American car to its new owner who lives on the Riviera, he makes the best of things. First, he gets and old friend to ride along with him. Then, the two of them are joined by another pair of men who want to ride south.

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The mistress of a wealthy man misses material comforts when she leaves him for a younger lover.

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Over the course of one night, a gang of twelve criminals carry out a commando-like raid on a small town.

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In the countryside near Normandy's beaches lives Marie, unhappy. It's 1945, she's married to Jérôme, a somewhat fussy milquetoast, diffident to the war around him and unwilling to move his wife to Paris, where she longs to live, shop, and party. A German outfit is bivouacked at Jérôme and Marie's crumbling château because its commanding officer is pursuing Marie. She's also eyed by a French spy working with the Allies as they plan D-Day. He woos her (posing to the Germans as her brother) and, in his passion, forgets his mission. Heroics come from an unexpected direction, and Marie makes her choice.

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In this drama that alludes to the Algerian War with France of the 1960s, Thomas is a deserter from the French Foreign Legion who is on the run from authorities. He helps damsel in distress Dominique, who has been taken hostage by a group of terrorists. Thomas is wounded but manages to escape after killing the guard who inflicted the injury. Dominique gives Thomas money to escape to France after he secures her freedom, but he is caught between the Foreign Legion and the terrorists seeking revenge.

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The charismatic, surly son of a wealthy industrialist, Clément, leads a double life as a member of a right-wing extremist organization. When he’s ratted out after a failed assassination attempt on a prominent politician, Clément and his long-suffering wife Anne flee Paris to the idyllic country home of his childhood friend, pacifist print-maker Paul. As affection blossoms between Paul and Anne, the emotional, as well as political tensions, soar and eventually explode.

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