Alain Cavalier

L'Amitié (2023)

"I have on occasion experienced filmmaking as an intensely shared activity. Lively friendships result and remain. Filming that affection today is no act of nostalgia. Paths once crossed make things simple. People who have been behind the camera, or in fron ...

Variations (2023)

Variations of the three portraits of the movie L'amitié. ...

Living and Knowing You Are Alive (2019)

Novelist and screenwriter Emmanuèle Bernheim and filmmaker Alain Cavalier have been friends for 30 years. They are preparing a film based on the former's autobiography, "Tout s'est bien passé" (Everything Went Fine). In it, she tells how her father asked ...

Six portraits XL : 3 Philippe et Bernard (2018)

Philippe : An actress, a member of the Académie française, a boxer, an actor... Philippe, an all-round athlete of the televised interview, prepares to interview them one after the other. Half an hour each, without deletions, in a single afternoon. He ta ...

Six portraits XL : 2 Jacquotte et Daniel (2018)

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 ...

Six portraits XL : 1 Léon et Guillaume (2018)

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 ...

Le Caravage (2015)

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 t ...

Cavalier Express (2014)

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, h ...

Paradise (2014)

"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 ...

Journal filmé à la Cinémathèque française (2012)

10 films inédits d'Alain Cavalier (2012)

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

Ma femme vit dans la peur / C'est plein / Le roi des biberons (2011)

Elle, seule (2011)

Faire la mort (2011)

Cadeau de naissance (2011)

Le pâtissier japonais (2011)

France 1961 (2010)

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

Irene (2009)

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. ...

Sept gouttes de sommeil (2009)

Les Braves (2008)

Holy Places (2007)

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. ...

J’attends Joël (2007)

Agonie d'un melon (2007)

8 récits express d'Alain Cavalier (2006)

Le Filmeur (2005)

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 hi ...

Bonnard (2005)

"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 ...

René (2002)

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 questio ...

Vies (2000)

"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 ...

Georges de La Tour (1998)

"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 th ...

The Encounter (1996)

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. ...

Libera me (1993)

"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 prepar ...

Liberté, liberté chérie (1993)

Portraits: Deuxième Série (1991)

"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 eac ...

The Illusionist (1990)

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 rai ...

L'illusionniste (1990)

Portraits: Première Série (1988)

"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 eac ...

Thérèse (1986)

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 sen ...

Lettre d'Alain Cavalier (1982)

A movie director attemps to film the way he writes a screenplay. ...

Un étrange voyage (1981)

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. ...

This Answering Service Takes No Messages (1979)

A man repaints his apartment. Through objects, photos, drawings he plunges back into his past. His future seems so dark that he ends up painting the whole apartment in black, including the windows, to absolute black. ...

Martin and Lea (1979)

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

Fill 'er Up with Super (1976)

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 the ...

Heartbeat (1968)

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

Pillaged (1967)

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

A Matter of Resistance (1966)

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 ...

The Unvanquished (1964)

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. Tho ...

Le Combat dans l'île (1962)

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 wi ...

The Lovers (1958)

A shallow, provincial wife finds her relationship with her preoccupied husband strained by romantic notions, leading her further towards Paris and the country wilderness. ...

Provincial Chronicle (1958)

Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

A self-assured businessman murders his employer, husband of his mistress, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events. ...

Un américain (1958)

An American sculptor, passioned by literature, comes to Paris to perfect his art, but ends up with barely no money, and to survive has to sell The New York Herald Tribune, at night, to his compatriots. A look at the bohemian Parisian life of the fifties. ...

Appelez le 17 (1957)

Cavalier Seul (2025)

Alain Cavalier is a childlike nonagenarian, a filmmaker who turns his immediate surroundings into an escape route. Yves Jeuland offered to create a portrait of him, somewhat 'in his style.' The rules of the game: five meetings in the small studio. The resu ...

L'Amitié (2023)

"I have on occasion experienced filmmaking as an intensely shared activity. Lively friendships result and remain. Filming that affection today is no act of nostalgia. Paths once crossed make things simple. People who have been behind the camera, or in fron ...

Living and Knowing You Are Alive (2019)

Novelist and screenwriter Emmanuèle Bernheim and filmmaker Alain Cavalier have been friends for 30 years. They are preparing a film based on the former's autobiography, "Tout s'est bien passé" (Everything Went Fine). In it, she tells how her father asked ...

Journal filmé à la Cinémathèque française (2012)

I'd Like to Share Spring with Someone (2007)

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 ...

Le Filmeur (2005)

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 hi ...

Alain Cavalier - Sept chapitres, cinq jours, 2 pièces-cuisine (1996)

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

The Unvanquished (1964)

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. Tho ...