Nicolas Philibert
Nicolas Philibert (French: [filibɛʁ]; born 10 January 1951) is a French documentary filmmaker. He has directed films since 1978. At the 73rd Berlinale (2023), he receives the Golden Bear for his film "On the Adamant". Philibert's father was a film lecturer and he attended his talks in his youth. This encouraged him to embark on a film career. He started this with René Allio (1970), as a trainee on Les Camisards as an assistant on Rude Journée pour la reine (1973) and assistant-director on Moi, Pierre Rivière, ayant égorgé ma mère, ma sœur et mon frère... (1975). In 1978 he co-directed with Gérard Mordillat a feature documentary His Master's Voice, in which a dozen bosses of big industrial groups discuss power, leadership, hierarchies and the role of unions. Between 1985 and 1987, he made several films about mountains and adventure for TV, then turned to making feature-length documentaries for theatrical distribution: La Ville Louvre (1990), Le Pays des sourds (1992), Un animal, des animaux (1995), La Moindre des choses (1996) - at the psychiatric clinic of La Borde, as well as an experimental film with the pupils of the theatre school Théâtre national de Strasbourg, Qui sait? (1998). In 2001, Nicolas Philibert made Être et avoir, about daily life in a single class school on a small village in the Auvergne. It won the Prix Louis Delluc 2002, and became a box office and critical success in France and internationally. The film was screened out of competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. With Retour en Normandie (2007), he revisited the traces of a previous films, made thirty years earlier by René Allio, with local peasants playing the lead roles. With Nénette (2010), made at the Ménagerie du Jardin des plantes in Paris, he produced an intimated portrait of the most famous of its inhabitants a female orang-utang, Nénette, held in captivity for 36 years. La Maison de la radio (2013), takes us into the heart of the French Radio headquarters in Paris, finding out who inhabits the place and discovering the mysteries of its long corridors. Over the last fifteen years there have been more than 120 retrospectives or 'homages' to Philibert organised internationally including the British Film Institute (London) and the Museum of Modern Art (New York). He was one of the directors invited to nominate his favourite films in the British Film Institute's 2012 poll. He explains, in French, his motivations, his influences (including Agnés Varda) and the history of his career as a documentary film maker, especially the 'impermeable' frontiers between documentary and drama in an interview recorded in April 2012.
Back to Normandy
(Director)
Back to Normandy
(Editor)
To Be and to Have
(Director)
To Be and to Have
(Editor)
Trilogy for One Man
(Director)
Louvre City
(Director)
In the Land of the Deaf
(Director)
Nénette
(Director)
Every Little Thing
(Director)
La Maison de la Radio
(Director)
Animals and More Animals
(Director)
Animals and More Animals
(Writer)
Louvre City
(Writer)
Christophe
(Director)
The Invisible
(Director)
Go Ahead, Baby!
(Director)
Baquet's Comeback
(Director)
We, France's Undocumented Immigrants
(Co-Director)
The North Face of the Camembert
(Director)
Louvre City
(Editor)
His Master's Voice
(Director)
At Averroès & Rosa Parks
(Director)
To Be and to Have
(Writer)
To Be and to Have
(Camera Operator)
In the Land of the Deaf
(Writer)
Every Little Thing
(Writer)
The Typewriter and Other Headaches
(Director)
On the Adamant
(Director)
On the Adamant
(Writer)
On the Adamant
(Editor)
On the Adamant
(Director of Photography)
Family Portraits
(Director)
Joël comme Collado
(Director)
No Problem
(Director)
Emmanuelle Laborit, Sign Shards
(Director)
The Measure of the Feat
(Director)
Pour Catherine
(Director)
Patrons 78-91
(Writer)
What Drives the Taxidermist
(Director)
Metamorphosis of a Building
(Writer)
Les 18 du 57, Boulevard de Strasbourg
(Co-Director)
Family Portraits
(Writer)
The Screening
(Director)
La nuit du court 2011
(Director)
His Master's Voice
(Writer)
Nénette
(Writer)
Who Knows?
(Writer)
Each and Every Moment
(Writer)
Every Little Thing
(Director of Photography)
In the Skin of a Badger
(Writer)
Nénette, orang-outan de Bornéo
(Director)
France Culture au Festival d'Avignon: 'Forcenés'
(Director)
La Maison de la Radio
(Writer)
Nénette, orang-outan de Bornéo
(Writer)
La nuit du court 2011
(Editor)
Night Falls on the Menagerie
(Director of Photography)
The Screening
(Director of Photography)
What Drives the Taxidermist
(Director of Photography)
Nénette
(Editor)
The Invisible
(Director of Photography)
Every Little Thing
(Editor)
Y'a quelqu'un?
(Director)
Night Falls on the Menagerie
(Writer)
Joël comme Collado
(Director of Photography)
Nénette
(Director of Photography)
Nénette, orang-outan de Bornéo
(Director of Photography)
La Maison de la Radio
(Editor)
The Screening
(Editor)
Metamorphosis of a Building
(Director)
Patrons 78-91
(Director)
In the Skin of a Badger
(Director)
What Drives the Taxidermist
(Writer)
France Culture au Festival d'Avignon: 'Forcenés'
(Director of Photography)
Nénette, orang-outan de Bornéo
(Editor)
Night Falls on the Menagerie
(Editor)
Nénette's Birthday
(Director)
At Averroès & Rosa Parks
(Editor)
At Averroès & Rosa Parks
(Director of Photography)
A Tale of the Wind
(Assistant Director)
Each and Every Moment
(Director)
The Wonderful Crook
(Production Design)
Who Knows?
(Director)
Each and Every Moment
(Editor)
Each and Every Moment
(Director of Photography)
Night Falls on the Menagerie
(Director)
I, Pierre Rivière, Having Slaughtered My Mother, My Sister and My Brother…
(Assistant Director)
La faute à Rousseau
(Director)
Les Carnets De L'Aventure
(Director)
And How Are Things with You?
(Director)
Patrons - Télévision
(Director)
Patrons - Télévision
(Writer)