Benoît Jacquot

The full soundtrack to Marguerite Duras' 1975 film India Song, about a French ambassador's wife in 1930s India, is here repurposed with all new cinematography. As we hear all the dialogue of a bygone movie, we travel visually through images of absence and decay, bereft of life. It's the ghost of a film, and a further commentary on colonialism.

Xavier is a 40-year-old father of two who still finds life very complicated. When the mother of his children moves to New York, he can't bear them growing up far away from him and so he decides to move there as well.

She worked with the world’s greatest actors and directors: Buñuel, Mastroianni, Lellouche, Depardieu... The film guides us throughout her career with the filmmakers with whom she invented herself not to be a “cold blonde actress”, thanks to great interviews of many artists who crossed her path.

It’s summertime, 2021. Isabelle Huppert plays Lioubov, Chekhov’s unforgettably heroine in The Cherry Orchard. In a near theatre, Fabrice Luchini recites Nietzsche. Both actors are premiering at Avignon’s Festival. When they leave backstage to stand out on stage, they are completely transformed. As everything seems utterly natural, audience does not imagine what happened before. By following their daily lives during the weeks preceding the premieres, Benoît Jacquot brings a singular perspective of the two actors and shows them like we’ve never seen before.

A documentary about the life and career of film director Ernst Lubitsch

In this thriller, a UNESCO translator stumbles across a group which is hiding and supporting Nazis and facilitating their travel around the world. She had been given an assignment to study the work of a writer who recently had died, and the conspiracy is revealed in materials he left behind. She comes upon a young man who is going through the writer's papers, and she immediately assumes he must be one of the conspirators. However, he soon convinces her of his innocence in that regard, and the two together begin a search for the ringleader.

Philippe Garrel’s documentary on France’s second wave of masterful filmmakers. Featuring Jean Eustache, Chantal Akerman, André Téchiné, Leos Carax, Jacques Doillon and Benoit Jacquot.

In the 28th century, Valerian and Laureline are special operatives charged with keeping order throughout the human territories. On assignment from the Minister of Defense, the two undertake a mission to Alpha, an ever-expanding metropolis where species from across the universe have converged over centuries to share knowledge, intelligence, and cultures. At the center of Alpha is a mysterious dark force which threatens the peaceful existence of the City of a Thousand Planets, and Valerian and Laureline must race to identify the menace and safeguard not just Alpha, but the future of the universe.

Anne-Marie Stretter, the wife of a French diplomat in 1930s India, takes many lovers to relieve the boredom in her life.

Le Navire Night is a story of love and desire sustained and nourished through sound waves. The film’s voice-over tells the story of a woman, terminally ill with leukemia, living in isolation at her wealthy father's villa, and a man working night shifts at a telephone company. They have never met in person.

The fortunes of a small theatrical company based in the Paris suburbs.

Do you know Lacan, which many consider as the greatest psychoanalyst since Freud? Beyond the myth, the legends and sometimes, the curses, this film by Gérard Miller allows us to discover his work and his personality, through the testimony of his patients, his students, and also his relatives. Born with the XXth century into an upper-middle-class Catholic family, a psychiatrist by training, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of culture, a friend of Picasso, Levi-Strauss and Sartre, Lacan was a great theoretician, an outstanding practitioner, and he remains the most modern, the most challenging and even the most sulphurous of psychoanalysts. The director Gerard Miller met Lacan thanks to his brother, Jacques-Alain, the most faithful of his students, who married his daughter Judith. Their close and intense relationship makes this film exceptional.

Catherine Deneuve couldn’t care less about being a celebrity, but fame made her an icon long ago and she occupies a special place in our imagination. The star is not one to let others get too close, but when she gives you her confidence, she keeps her word. If Deneuve’s career covers a half-century of cinema, it also bears witness to the force of a generation that experienced the deepest transformation of mores. This portrait reflects her entirely. The story of a mystery and an adventure.

Jeanne is interned in a psychiatric hospital. She claims to be Joan of Arc.

Damien is a professor of Chinese civilization who lives with his wife, Iva, a theater director, and their son Noé. Their love is mired in a mountain of routine and disenchantment. To help keep Zorica from getting deported, Iva gets Damien to promise he’ll go to his father, a state department official, for help. But Damien and his father have a distant and cool relationship. And this mission is a risky business which will send Damien spiraling downward and over the edge...

Jean and Julie meet again ten years after childhood. Jean has trouble recognizing the grown up girl. Julie is "promised" to Henri, a neighbor. Julie, scathing and capricious, provokes Henri and Jean.

A long interview between Marguerite Duras and Benoît Jacquot on the subject of writing and of solitude, at the country house where Marguerite Duras lived alone for several years; those in which she wrote The Vice-Consul and Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein.

Ann leaves Thomas and everything else behind when she catches him kissing another woman. With her music and help from Georges, she begins a journey to find herself.

A 20th-century prostitute (Dominique Sanda) arranges for her lover (Michele Placido) to wed a wealthy, dying millionairess (Isabelle Huppert) in Venice.

A dedicated clarinetist receives a valuable violin and has a difficult time deciding what to do with it.

The romantic and cruel escapades of a gigolo and a mysterious woman.

A worldly French teen is determined to escape from her current situation for a better life.

A worldly French teen is determined to escape from her current situation for a better life.

Twenty-year old Adolphe finds himself drawn irresistibly to Ellénore, a married woman who is ten years his senior. Although she initially repels her young suitor’s unwanted advances, Ellénore soon yields to his charms and the two embark on a passionate love affair.

A wanderer named Timothee arrives in a French village in 1865 pretending to be deaf and mute. He uses tricks to hypnotize a beautiful young woman named Josephine and takes advantage of her until he is arrested and tried for his crimes.

A man prepares himself to be transferred to a detention center and rest home where he will relive one more time the highlights of his youth.

A wanderer named Timothee arrives in a French village in 1865 pretending to be deaf and mute. He uses tricks to hypnotize a beautiful young woman named Josephine and takes advantage of her until he is arrested and tried for his crimes.

This symbolic drama from director Benoit Jacques underscores the characters' human need for affection. Children steal lemons for the thrill, while women steal other women's men from them just to prove they can. Drug smuggling, clandestine love affairs, and two lovers involved with the production of Shakespeare's Othello carry on with their own off-stage tragedy.

On her birthday, a young actress learns her father is a Hindu man her mother met in India. She decamps to Varanasi to find him.

On her birthday, a young actress learns her father is a Hindu man her mother met in India. She decamps to Varanasi to find him.

A businessman convicted of a white-collar crime becomes a changed person upon his release from prison.

Fashion executive Dominique's obsession for Quentin, a young bisexual hustler, fills her desire for physical love but leaves her taxed emotionally. Twists and turns in the relationship, along with the man's violent and abusive nature, force Dominique to reconcile the conflicts created by her passion. In this quest, Dominique is aided, and sometimes hindered, by friends, clients, and Quentin's former and current acquaintances.

A young woman disguises herself as a knight to expose a gold-digging man divided between her and a Countess.

A girl from bourgeoisie discovers the pleasures of banditism, following her lover in his lifestyle.

Benoit Jacquot's acclaimed 2002 film of Puccini's opera stars Angela Gheorghiu in the title role, with Roberto Alagna, Ruggero Raimondi and the Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, under Antonio Pappano.

A young Parisian must make major decisions about pregnancy, a job and her boyfriend.

Gaspard de Besse and his gang of highwaymen escaped the law for years in old monsieur de Morières's jurisdiction in rural, Ancient Régime France. When Gaspard is badly injured trough treason, he escapes after being seen in St.Anne's convent, where he hid, by de Morières's young, unwillingly arranged and unloving wife Anne. Gaspard makes a deal with the traitor to fake his demise. He recruits traveling actor Antoine and trains him like a son.

A bored, sexually frustrated woman's life improves when she begins hypnotherapy and tries feng shui, but her husband's life unravels.

A bored, sexually frustrated woman's life improves when she begins hypnotherapy and tries feng shui, but her husband's life unravels.

The plot revolves around Bernard – a schoolfriend of Olivier's who is preparing for his bac – discovering he is a bastard and taking this as a welcome pretext for running away from home. He spends a night in Olivier's bed (where Olivier describes a recent visit to a prostitute and how he did not find the experience very enjoyable). After Bernard steals the suitcase belonging to Edouard, Olivier's uncle, and the ensuing complications, he is made Edouard's secretary. Olivier is jealous and ends up in the hands of the cynical and downright diabolical Comte de Passavant, who travels with him to the Mediterranean.

The plot revolves around Bernard – a schoolfriend of Olivier's who is preparing for his bac – discovering he is a bastard and taking this as a welcome pretext for running away from home. He spends a night in Olivier's bed (where Olivier describes a recent visit to a prostitute and how he did not find the experience very enjoyable). After Bernard steals the suitcase belonging to Edouard, Olivier's uncle, and the ensuing complications, he is made Edouard's secretary. Olivier is jealous and ends up in the hands of the cynical and downright diabolical Comte de Passavant, who travels with him to the Mediterranean.

The director filmed and followed Fabrice Luchini during his performances at the theater. Alone on stage, he speaks, recites, narrates and plays the precious words of great authors. We hear him in texts by Beaudelaire, Jean de La Fontaine, Victor Hugo, Elie Faure, Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Gustave Flaubert.

A look at the relationship between Marie Antoinette and one of her readers during the final days of the French Revolution.

A look at the relationship between Marie Antoinette and one of her readers during the final days of the French Revolution.

A young man who seems lost, Nicolas, has an appointment with her sister Juliette. They are bound by a heavy childhood secret: their mother committed suicide when their father had instructed Nicolas to keep it. Since the father chased him and forbade Juliette to see him.

Based on Don DeLillo's novella "The Body Artist," the film swirls around a self-centered filmmaker who, during a screening of one of his films, wanders into an adjoining gallery and becomes mesmerized by a young performance artist. Dumping his leading lady and long-time lover, Rey embarks on a wild and delirious affair with the equally willing Laura, who jumps on the back of his motorcycle and rides with him into instantaneous love.

A girl from bourgeoisie discovers the pleasures of banditism, following her lover in his lifestyle.

It’s summertime, 2021. Isabelle Huppert plays Lioubov, Chekhov’s unforgettably heroine in The Cherry Orchard. In a near theatre, Fabrice Luchini recites Nietzsche. Both actors are premiering at Avignon’s Festival. When they leave backstage to stand out on stage, they are completely transformed. As everything seems utterly natural, audience does not imagine what happened before. By following their daily lives during the weeks preceding the premieres, Benoît Jacquot brings a singular perspective of the two actors and shows them like we’ve never seen before.

It’s summertime, 2021. Isabelle Huppert plays Lioubov, Chekhov’s unforgettably heroine in The Cherry Orchard. In a near theatre, Fabrice Luchini recites Nietzsche. Both actors are premiering at Avignon’s Festival. When they leave backstage to stand out on stage, they are completely transformed. As everything seems utterly natural, audience does not imagine what happened before. By following their daily lives during the weeks preceding the premieres, Benoît Jacquot brings a singular perspective of the two actors and shows them like we’ve never seen before.

In "psychanalyse", a two part documentary, the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan answers to questions submitted by his son-in-law Jacques-Alain Miller under the direction of Benoit Jacquot. The Office de Radiodiffusion Television Francaise (ORTF, the french public TV) broadcast this program. This documentary and its text became famous because this is the only televisual experience practiced by Lacan. A fair amount is made of the fact that Lacan was renowned for his powers of seduction and what effect this had on transference in the clinical setting. According to some of the interviewees, he could be irresistibly seductive, so much so that some thought him "monster".

The story of Napoleon Bonaparte's grandniece, the famous Princess Marie, her friendship and her work with Sigmund Freud.

A twist of fate leaves a hapless accountant romantically torn between two sisters.

A twist of fate leaves a hapless accountant romantically torn between two sisters.

In the aristocratic society of the seventeenth century, the fate of Marianne child who survived the deadly attack on a convoy.

Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.

Julien seeks to reconquer Jeanne, his ex-wife, of whom he is separated and who lives with another man. He is prepared to go far to make it happen.

In the late 19th century, a chambermaid from Paris relocates to a remote household in Provence, engages in trysts and finds herself enraptured with a coach driver.

A young Parisian must make major decisions about pregnancy, a job and her boyfriend.

A couple have a peaceful existence in a small provincial town. He is a teacher and she runs an opticians practical. Their life is turned upside when Belle, a friend’s daughter who is lodging with them, is found dead in her room. The husband becomes the prime suspect as the only one at home at the time.

In the late 19th century, a chambermaid from Paris relocates to a remote household in Provence, engages in trysts and finds herself enraptured with a coach driver.

A businessman convicted of a white-collar crime becomes a changed person upon his release from prison.

Karl, a young immigrant, lives with his uncle in New York who jealously watches over the education of his nephew. A friend, Mr. Pallunder invites Karl to spend a night at his house. Despite strong opposition from his uncle, Karl agrees. On the way, Karl realises he may have displeased his guardian. His desire to turn back will be prevented.

When Duras saw 'La mort du jeune aviateur anglais', she told Benoît Jacquot that the film was about him, not her. "She treated me like a thief. So I offered to make another film, where she could say whatever she wanted about her life as a writer. That’s how we did Écrire. I brought the same film crew. We went to her house at Neauphle-le-Château and we set up in the room she called 'the music room,' where there was a piano and you could listen to records. She settled in and for two days of non-stop filming, she talked."

Marguerite Duras tells the story of the death of a young English aviator in a French village.

A playwright encounters a mysterious woman when he takes shelter in a chalet during a violent snowstorm and becomes obsessed with her.

A young man who seems lost, Nicolas, has an appointment with her sister Juliette. They are bound by a heavy childhood secret: their mother committed suicide when their father had instructed Nicolas to keep it. Since the father chased him and forbade Juliette to see him.

Meeting with Kinshi Tsuruta, the eminent Japanese singer master of biwa. During a lesson with two of his students, devoted to the secular recitation of epics and feudal struggles of the 17th century. The musician looks back on the transformations she made to the Satsuma biwa

Werther loves Charlotte, but she promised her mother on her deathbed that she would marry Albert. After the marriage Charlotte suggests that Werther should travel - but not forget her. In addition to the singing and orchestral accompaniment, the entire cast acts very convincingly. And, there's no backstage mugging, entrances and spoken nonsense to spoil the experience of the drama.

Anne-Marie Stretter, the wife of a French diplomat in 1930s India, takes many lovers to relieve the boredom in her life.

In the aristocratic society of the seventeenth century, the fate of Marianne child who survived the deadly attack on a convoy.

Year 1763. Forced into exile, the famous libertine Giacomo Casanova leaves Paris and travels to London, where he meets Marianne de Charpillon, a young prostitute to whom he is so attracted that he forgets about the other women.

A playwright encounters a mysterious woman when he takes shelter in a chalet during a violent snowstorm and becomes obsessed with her.

A couple have a peaceful existence in a small provincial town. He is a teacher and she runs an opticians practical. Their life is turned upside when Belle, a friend’s daughter who is lodging with them, is found dead in her room. The husband becomes the prime suspect as the only one at home at the time.

Ann leaves Thomas and everything else behind when she catches him kissing another woman. With her music and help from Georges, she begins a journey to find herself.

Year 1763. Forced into exile, the famous libertine Giacomo Casanova leaves Paris and travels to London, where he meets Marianne de Charpillon, a young prostitute to whom he is so attracted that he forgets about the other women.

A 20th-century prostitute (Dominique Sanda) arranges for her lover (Michele Placido) to wed a wealthy, dying millionairess (Isabelle Huppert) in Venice.

Alone on stage, at the dawn of his forties, Fabrice Luchini renders the reflections of the suburban doctor Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Benoît Jacquot, with his nuanced black and white, films the actor impregnated with words full of pain.

In "psychanalyse", a two part documentary, the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan answers to questions submitted by his son-in-law Jacques-Alain Miller under the direction of Benoit Jacquot. The Office de Radiodiffusion Television Francaise (ORTF, the french public TV) broadcast this program. This documentary and its text became famous because this is the only televisual experience practiced by Lacan. A fair amount is made of the fact that Lacan was renowned for his powers of seduction and what effect this had on transference in the clinical setting. According to some of the interviewees, he could be irresistibly seductive, so much so that some thought him "monster".

Werther loves Charlotte, but she promised her mother on her deathbed that she would marry Albert. After the marriage Charlotte suggests that Werther should travel – but not forget her. Benoît Jacquot’s production of Massenet’s tragic opera explores the conflict between duty and our most passionate desires.

In Benoît Jacquot’s production, Manet’s Olympia dominates the stage of the Opéra Bastille. In 1863, the painting caused a scandal: the prostitute awaits her client, her expression proud, her demeanour assured. Is this Violetta? Like Olympia, Verdi’s most celebrated heroine surrenders to the spectator just as she surrenders to love, going so far as to die on stage, a woman’s ultimate sacrifice for her lover. Or might it be the spectator who strips her bare and intrudes upon her privacy, in the image of this milieu of social voyeurism? Whatever the case, these two women regard us with defiance and subjugate those who cannot help but look at them.

This symbolic drama from director Benoit Jacques underscores the characters' human need for affection. Children steal lemons for the thrill, while women steal other women's men from them just to prove they can. Drug smuggling, clandestine love affairs, and two lovers involved with the production of Shakespeare's Othello carry on with their own off-stage tragedy.

Between February and September 1940, Louis Jouvet worked with Claudia, ascending to the National Superior Conservatory of Dramatic Art in Paris, the second scene of Elvire by Don Juan de Molière. These theater lessons, re-transcribed in the smallest details, are the opportunity to watch the comedian learn. This one tries to undo what it calls “the covert me who possesses it” and the channel to invest all its role, to play without artifice. In 1986, Brigite Jaques-Wajeman excelled in this course to put on an internationally successful show

A tale by Pierre Rissient: How I became a cinema lover in France and in the USA.

Accompanied by her lover, Suzanna, 40, views a Riviera beach house for her family's summer vacation. This day, this break in her routine, in this new house, will mark a turning point in her life. Based on the Marguerite Duras play of the same name, Suzanna Andler is the portrait of a woman trapped in her marriage to a wealthy, unfaithful businessman in the 1960s. She must choose between her conventional destiny as a wife and mother, and her freedom, embodied by her young lover.

Accompanied by her lover, Suzanna, 40, views a Riviera beach house for her family's summer vacation. This day, this break in her routine, in this new house, will mark a turning point in her life. Based on the Marguerite Duras play of the same name, Suzanna Andler is the portrait of a woman trapped in her marriage to a wealthy, unfaithful businessman in the 1960s. She must choose between her conventional destiny as a wife and mother, and her freedom, embodied by her young lover.

Following her performances in recent seasons in Verdi’s La travita on the world’s major opera stages – the Metropolitan, New York, La Scala, Milan, Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Paris Opera – Diana Damrau has become the primary interpreter of Violetta, arguably opera’s most iconic character. This DVD release is from Paris Opera production of June 2014, when the German soprano appeared in a new production – inspired by the paintings of Manet – by the film director Benoit Jacquot. This critically acclaimed production was conducted by Francesco Ivan Ciampa, with a cast including Francesco Demuro and Ludovic Tezier.

Based on the short story by Jorge Luis Borges, the tale recounts how its eponymous heroine avenges the death of her father.

A dedicated clarinetist receives a valuable violin and has a difficult time deciding what to do with it.

Filmed in his studio in 1988, in front of Benoît Jacquot's camera, the painter Robert Motherwell, then aged 73, retraces the main creative stages of his work and describes very precisely his way of working: the importance of the choice of brush , of the support, of the paint used, the accidents which occur and which determine the work... He engages in a discourse on art in the serene atmosphere of his studio in Greenwich. He describes the principles of psychic automatism and comments on the different periods of his work to which dozens of retrospectives, including one in Paris in 1977, have been devoted throughout the world. A rigorous portrait that reveals the painter with his doubts and convictions.

A short film made for “Venezia 70 - Future Reloaded”. A young woman stares intently at the camera.