28th THESSALONIKI INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL
5 MARCH → 15 MARCH 2026
5 MARCH → 15 MARCH 2026
31 OCTOBER → 9 NOVEMBER 2025
17 JUNE → 21 JUNE 2025
FFGR
TRIBUTES: Nicholas Philibert Spotlight


France • 1994 • 59’• 35mm • Colour
This film's content is not available in English
Η πτέρυγα ζωολογίας του Μουσείου Φυσικής Ιστορίας της Γαλλίας είχε μείνει κλειστή για το κοινό για πάνω από 25 χρόνια, αφήνοντας χιλιάδες ταριχευμένα ζώα ξεχασμένα μέσα στις σκιές. Γυρισμένο κατά τη διάρκεια των ανακαινίσεων της πτέρυγας αυτής, η ταινία καταγράφει τη μεταμόρφωση του χώρου


Internationally recognized director, Nicolas Philibert was born in Nancy (France) in 1951, grew up in Grenoble and has lived in Paris since the age of 20. After studying philosophy, he turned to cinema, making his first steps as an assistant director on fiction films, and soon began directing feature-length documentaries which were all theatrically released: Louvre City (1990), In the Land of the Deaf (1993), Animals (1995) or Every Little Thing (1997), which constitutes for him his first experience of filming in psychiatry. In 2002, his film To Be and To Have, which retraces the daily life of a “single-class” school in a small mountain village, presented in the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival, achieved immense success in France and in forty countries. It was followed by Back to Normandy (2007), Nénette (2010), La Maison de la radio (2013), and Each and Every Moment (2018) which immerses us in a nursing training institute. Filmed in the heart of the Paris central psychiatric system, his last three films – On the Adamant (Golden Bear at the Berlinale 2023), At Averroes & Rosa Parks (2024) and The Typewriter and Other Headaches (2024) - constitute a triptych in which he strives to rehabilitate the words of patients and to film places which attempt to resist the decay and dehumanization which strike psychiatry. Film after film Nicolas Philibert builds a body of work off the beaten track which combines poetry, humor, commitment, and which gives pride of place to imagination and encounters. The more we delve into his films, the more we see what unites the filmmaker and his protagonists, something like the search for a common humanity beyond the differences that separate them. The acuity of his listening makes him one of the great filmmakers of the human condition.
1978 His Master’s Voice (co-direction)
1985 Christophe (short)
1987 Trilogy for One Man
1990 Louvre City
1992 In the Land of the Deaf
1995 Animals and More Animals
1997 Every Little Thing
1999 Who Knows?
2002 To Be and To Have
2007 Back to Normandy
2010 Nénette
2013 La Maison de la radio
2018 Each and Every Moment
2022 On the Adamant
2024 At Averroes & Rosa Parks
2024 The Typewriter and Other Headaches
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