Claire Simon

In a Parisian public hospital, Claire Simon questions what it means to live in women’s bodies, filming their diversity, singularity and their beauty in all stages throughout life. Unique stories of desires, fears and struggles unfold, including the one of the filmmaker herself.

Three friends form a bond over the year, Johnathan is gay, Clare is straight and Bobby is neither, instead he loves the people he loves. As their lives go on there is tension and tears which culminate in a strong yet fragile friendship between the three.

In 1982, Yann Andréa and Marguerite Duras have been living together for two years. She is almost 70 years old, while he is 38 years her junior. Andréa asks journalist and writer Michèle Manceaux to interview him about his life with Duras, an obsession that both impassions him and drives him mad. He believes by entrusting their story to Manceaux, he may gain more clarity of the relationship. What follows is an intense and compelling conversation delving into the deepest recesses of modern love.

An all-access tour behind the scenes at France’s premiere film school, La Fémis. Showing us how successful candidates get to follow in the footsteps of such luminaries as Louis Malle, François Ozon and Alain Resnais, all of whom attended this prestigious institution. Stumbling over their words, the often-nervous candidates seem vulnerable when confronted with the veterans of the industry, who have the difficult task of discovering true talent among all these eager young people.

After committing a hit and run, a man insinuates himself into the lives of the victim's family.

After falling off her horse, a teenage girl is rescued by a manly, older fireman with whom she falls in love with tragic consequences.

Paris, North Station, anything comes by, even trains. One would like to stay, but they have to hurry up... Like other thousands lives crossing, Ismael, Mathilde, Sacha and Joan are going to meet here...

Claire Simon portrays an important time for any individual, from 16 to 18 years of age. Set in the Paris suburbs in high school (for those lucky enough to go), teenagers chat after and even during class, sitting in the hallway or outside on a bench, looking at the city below them.

Two lesbians are victims of a break-in. Together with their clan of friends, they undertake a wild investigation, with suspense and rigour, to arrive at the truth. Sensitivities are aroused around life choices, and political choices. Questions of morality comically embellished with words of abuse falling into drunkenness.

Mimi isn't a star, she's just someone. A close-up of the singularity of a real life. An encounter of someone's particular story, romance, fantasy and territories.

A major figure in contemporary feminism and the first Frenchwoman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, Annie Ernaux is seen by many as a source of individual and collective emancipation, blending the intimate with the universal. Filmmaker Claire Simon has devoted an original portrait to her, giving students and teachers a voice.

A realist dramedy about dedicated social workers who devote their long shifts to helping pregnant women.

Le Bois de Vincennes is a safe harbour for many Parisians. Migrants and natives, prostitutes and stalkers, rich and poor, old and young, downshifters and loners come to this forest in search of themselves and find there an escape from the metropolis. A delicate and profound portrait of a contemporary man and his desperate search for an 'unknown homeland'.

Free adaptation of Faulkner's novel aroused by the Patrick Henry and Ranucci cases.

May 68. While, outside, people are demonstrating, a man is finishing the editing of Baisers volés.

Sardinia 2017. The starting point for the film is one of the most loved lands in the Mediterranean, using it to enter into the world of cinema. Ten international masters of cinema explain Fiorenzo Serra's images, one of the greatest post-war Italian documentary makers. His masterpiece, "The last punch of Earth", will be analyzed and debated, a film which examined Italian change and European reflection.

Manon, 15, meets Greg, 17, while on vacation. He lives in Claviers, a little village in France’s Haut-Var region, while she lives in Paris. Greg and Manon are in love. This is a portrait of a young man who comes alive when his girlfriend is with him, for it’s their story that counts. He must deal with the geography that separates them and come to terms with the past.

As French kindergarteners pour forth for recess, play takes on epic proportions. In every corner, some miniature drama is unfolding. Violence, love, jealousy, treachery are all here! This is human society in the making.

Based on a true story this emotionally wrenching character study focuses upon a desperate young wife who feigns an entire pregnancy in hopes of convincing her dissatisfied husband to remain with her. Magali's problem comes from the fact that she is so bland and unassuming as to be nearly invisible. Her passivity and inability to form her own opinions grates on her husband Alain, a go-getter radio journalist, and he plans to take a year long assignment in Canada to get away from her. While preparing to leave, his boss, who has been inadvertently led to believe that Magli is pregnant, shows up and tells Alain. The husband's first response is to demand an abortion, but on second thought he decides he would like to become a father after all. Magli, fearing that he will leave, then devises her elaborate ruse.

February 1980, Plogoff. A whole town refuses the installation of a nuclear power station close to the Pointe du Raz, overlooking Sein island in the bay of Audierne opening onto the Atlantic Ocean. Six weeks of daily struggle led by local women, children, fishermen and farmers, determined to preserve the soul of this Finisterian land. Six weeks of joys, tenderness and drama... This is the historic epic of the people of Cap Sizun face to face with the pressures of modern society.

Claire Simon goes to Lussas, in France’s Ardèche, home to a vibrant community of documentarians. She films the creation of Tënk, an online platform for auteur documentaries. The initiative is a labour of love for the passionate and optimistic people behind it, but the process is long and arduous, as cultural projects often are. The filmmaker followed them for months, capturing their doubts and dilemmas: how do you manage everyday conflicts? Be accepted by a rural population that you aren’t part of? By the general public? Reconcile private life and professional calling? Reassure the mayor? Secure funding without making ethical compromises? A fascinating, bittersweet and insightful behind-the-scenes film. (Apolline Caron-Ottavi)

Summer of 1964. The professor Carlos and the couple Dário and Alda spend time together in the beach during vacations. Away from the colonial war, everything seems lost in time.

A small company valiantly struggles to survive under the respectful yet probing camera of Claire Simon in “At All Costs.” As the docu opens, founder and manager Jihad is off to see his banker. The lack of ready cash to pay his loyal employees, wholesale produce providers and a whole range of other creditors, including the tax-gobbling French government, is omnipresent. From a staff of 14, Jihad is down to three cooks, one delivery driver and a secretary in less than six months. The good-natured pluck of the remaining employees is at the heart of the film. Subterfuges for putting up a brave united front include scheduling food orders from a coin-operated pay phone when the office phone is cut off for nonpayment.

In the Makarenko public elementary school in the Paris outskirts, children want to learn and to be cheered while teachers know they do not only teach, they also educate. With care, tenacity and efforts, children are trained to become not only responsible citizens but also human beings.

Lussas is a small village in South Ardeche, France, with only one main road crossing the village. This real village, with farmers and vineyards, is also turning over time into the Hollywood of documentary films. A few people are preparing the launch of a television channel. From this sweet utopia to the inauguration of a high-tech tool on the internet Claire Simon depicts a singular adventure of our times in 26 episodes.