Bertrand Tavernier

Lt. Dave Robicheaux, a detective in New Iberia, Louisiana, is trying to link the murder of a local hooker to New Orleans mobster Julie 'Baby Feet' Balboni, who is co-producer of a Civil War film. When the star of the film, Elrod Sykes, reports finding another corpse in the Atchafalaya Swamp near the movie set, Robicheaux starts another investigation, believing the corpse to be the remains of a black man whose murder he witnessed 35 years earlier.

Art film producer Jeremy Prokosch, unhappy with the work of his director, hires Fritz Lang (as himself) to direct an adaptation of The Odyssey, but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb, he brings in a screenwriter to energise the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.

Inside the Blue Note nightclub one night in 1959 Paris, an aged, ailing jazzman coaxes an eloquent wail from his tenor sax. Outside, a young Parisian too broke to buy a glass of wine strains to hear those notes. Soon they will form a friendship that sparks a final burst of genius.

It is 1654, in the South of France. When horsemen follow a runaway slave into the convent where he's taken sanctuary and kill both the fugitive and the Mother Superior, they little realise that one of the novices is the spirited daughter of retired musketeer D'Artagnan.

Enigmatic gangster Silien may or may not be responsible for informing on Faugel, who was just released from prison and is already involved in what should be a simple heist. By the end of this brutal, twisting, and multilayered policier, who will be left to trust?

During the Nazi occupation of France, two filmmakers try to build a career without compromising their ideals.

A pathetic police chief, humiliated by everyone around him, suddenly wants a clean slate in life, and resorts to drastic means to achieve it.

A half English, half French screenwriter visits her parents on the Riviera after her father's heart surgery. Once there, she begins to connect with him in a way she never did before, as each member of the family tries to cope with his imminent death.

Set in the high courts of 16th Century France, where the wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants are raging. Marie de Mézières, a beautiful young aristocrat, is in love with Henri de Guise, but her hand in marriage is promised to the Prince of Montpensier.

The story of a young couple, Pierre and Geraldine, and their desire for a child, which leads them on a journey of initiation to Cambodia. On their difficult and transformative adventure, they must contend with obstructive authorities and the jealousies and mistrust of a small community of would-be adoptive parents.

Early new wave effort from Rohmer, which was the first of his six moral tales. It concerns a young man who approaches a girl in the street, but after several days without seeing her again, he becomes involved with the girl in the local bakery. Eventually, he has to choose between them when he arranges dates with them on the same day.

Following the death of her wealthy husband, American widow Kathryn West migrates to Italy and takes up a reclusive existence in a luxurious villa. After quickly succumbing to the charms of a local man, she lets him move into the villa and the two are later joined by his sister, which soon leads to complications.

Alexandre Taillard de Vorms is a force to be reckoned with. With his silver mane and tanned, athletic body, he stalks the world stage as Minister of Foreign Affairs for France, waging his own war backed up by the holy trinity of diplomatic concepts: legitimacy, lucidity, and efficacy. Enter Arthur Vlaminck. Hired to write the minister's speeches, Arthur must contend with the sensibilities of his boss and the dirty dealings within the Quai d'Orsay, the ministry's home.

Barny, although a Marxist, is intrigued by the mysteries of religion. In confession, she teases a priest, Léon Morin, but he is a young and intelligent man and ready to discuss anything.

A collection of restored prints from the Lumière Brothers.

Michel Descombes is a watchmaker who lives in Lyon with his teenage son Bernard. When the police visit and inform him that Bernard has killed a man and is on the run with a girl, Michel realises that he knew far less about his son than he thought.

The first episode of a new arts documentary program from BBC Scotland was dedicated to Michael Powell in his centenary year. The program interviews many people who knew or worked with him or were influenced by his work.

In a future world where the disease has been finally defeated and everything can be sold, even the crude spectacle of death, the rare case of a dying woman becomes the morbid theme of a revolutionary reality show, broadcast through the curious eyes of a peculiar camera.

Fred (Vincent Lindon) is a former crane driver who was a victim of the closure of his factory. He takes care of the little boy of his girlfriend (Clotilde Courau), does the housework and sometimes goes to the job center but boredom is inescapable. One day, because he accepted to drive a truck for a friend to a warehouse, he's caught up in a vicious spiral that goes beyond him. It's all the more serious as shady men want to eliminate him an the police is on his back.

In France, before WWI. As every Sunday, an old painter living in the country is visited by his son Gonzague, coming with his wife and his three children. Then his daugther Irene arrives. She is always in a hurry, she lives alone and does not come so often... An intimist chronicle in which what is not shown, what is guessed, is more important than how it looks, dealing with what each character expects of life.

France, 1893. Joseph Bouvier attempts to shoot his love who refused to marry him and to commit suicide. Upon release from the filthy asylum where he was placed, with bullets still remaining in his head, he wanders the country roads and rapes and murders many teenagers over years. The judge Rousseau captures him, but to serve his ambition seeks to avoid that Bouvier is simply declared insane.

In December 1997, Bertrand Tavernier supported a group of undocumented migrants in Lyon who went on hunger strike to protest against the double penalty. An agreement was reached, but the strike resumed a few months later, for lack of a real solution. The director then decides to take his camera and to give a long speech to these men and women that nobody wants to listen to.

In Paris, Lulu, a passionate policeman, works with the faith of a rookie, despite the sclerotic bureaucracy and the incompetence or negligence of some of his colleagues. In his new position as a narcotics inspector, he tries to keep his sanity as he witnesses the worst of the human condition.

In a mining town which has been blighted by economic downturns, an elementary school headmaster struggles to obtain social services on behalf of his students.

My Journey Through French Cinema (2017), Bertrand Tavernier’s César-nominated three-and-a-half-hour tour through French film history, was too short to introduce audiences to all that he wanted to share. In this new eight-part series (8x55min), the acclaimed director of such films as Coup de Torchon and ‘Round Midnight guides us through a roster of filmmakers both influential and forgotten, explores how his country’s cinema was shaped by the German occupation and changed again through the New Wave, spotlights little-known female filmmakers, and more. Subjects include: René Clément, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Julien Duvivier, Henri Decoin, Claude Autant-Lara, as well as composers who made movie music an art in and of itself, far from the Hollywood spotlight.