Une Odeur de Géranium

Laurent Achard set up his camera on the set of Paul Vecchiali’s film Le Cancre to capture the director’s creative power. Although Vecchiali’s precision is impressive, Achard also shows moments where his collaborators’ input is essential. Under the director’s eye, the stars are becoming actors again, and Achard revives the heritage of Vecchiali’s '70s and '80s production studio Diagonale.

A child waits in silence in the quiet of his home garden, in the deep countryside, alongside with his German Shepherd. He looks for his mother, looks around, checks in a shed, until he sees her leaving the house. But it’s as if she doesn’t see him. Something soon brings her back into the house, and the child is left alone with his nightmares.

It’s summer and the beginning of the long vacation period for eleven-year-old Martin, who lives on a farm, and, at a loss, observes his family’s disintegration : his mother lives locked-up in her room ; his older brother, who he adores, drowns himself in drink ; and his father, dominated by Martin’s grandmother, is a helpless onlooker to the family’s collapse. Although Mistigri, his cat, and Malika, the Moroccan maid, afford him some comfort, Martin is determined to put an end to this confusion.

Sylvain, a young man, devotes his life to small, local movie theater destined to be shut down. He lives in the theater's basement and is the theater programer, projectionist, and ticket seller. Each night, after the last screening, he leaves the building to carry out a ritual killing.

The last weekend of summer. Mother is preparing the jars for winter pickling, love-struck Françoise is practising karaoke in front of her little brother Julien. In the shed behind the house, Karim is doing some "undeclared" work, having given up on his acting dreams. In a few hours, the new canning factory, where Father works, will be inaugurated. No one is expecting Sonia, who decides to turn up that very morning.

With few words and leaving it to the spectator to fill in blanks, this short subject contemplates one ordinary day in the life of a single woman and her child.

From 2016 to 2021, Laurent Achard directed four portraits of filmmakers: Vecchiali, Brisseau, Stévenin, and Mazuy. The fifth (Carax), begun in 2023 at the Villa Medici, remained unfinished. He nicknamed it “The Chairs.” “When we consider how familiar death is, and how complete our ignorance is, and that there has never beenany escape, we must admit that the secret is well kept!” (Jankelevitch)

Jean-Claude Brisseau receives a film crew and some friends at his home to talk about cinema, childhood, time passing by…

In the twilight of their life, Odile and Marcel still love each other. Affected by an incurable disease, Odile must be hospitalized. Feeling the end of Odile so close, the couple decided to commit suicide, so not to be separated. The time of a last Sunday.