Whether his setting is a rural one-room schoolhouse (To Be and To Have) or the Byzantine halls of the Louvre (Louvre City), French documentary filmmaker Nicolas Philibert illuminates the way we live, work and communicate together with an eye towards the sublime moments of the everyday. A former philosophy major and assistant director to such filmmakers as Rene Allio and Alain Tanner, Philibert sensitively engages his subjects through generous takes and a fascination with process that refuses ultimate answers in favor of open contemplation. The Archive is pleased to present a selection of Philibert's films, including his most recent, Return to Normandy (2007), a fascinating reflection on the production of René Allio's Moi, Pierre Riviere … (1976), paired with an ultra-rare screening of Moi, Pierre, itself.

Special thanks to: Lise Sablet-De, Mathilde Caillol-- Los Angeles Film and TV Office, French Embassy.

Friday September 5 2008, 7:30PM ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

RETURN TO NORMANDY
(Retour en Normandie)
(2007, France) Directed by Nicolas Philibert

Thirty years after working as an assistant director on Rene Allio's Moi, Pierre Riviere…(1975), acclaimed documentarian Nicolas Philibert returns to Normandy to revisit with all of the participants of the original film. The film combines interviews with the cast, images of their current daily lives, excerpts from the film, Foucault's text (upon which the film is based) and director Rene Allio's original production notes to produce an intimate and richly layered work. With humor and thoughtful discretion, Philibert pays homage to Allio, while subtly revealing the intricacies of history, memory, family ties and the cinematic process.

Producer: Serge Lalou. Cinematographer: Katell Djian. Editor: Nicolas Philibert. Cast: Claude Hebert, Joseph Leportier, Jacqueline Milliere, Anne Borel, Nicole Picard. Presented in French dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 113 min.

I, PIERRE RIVIERE, HAVING SLAUGHTERED MY MOTHER, MY SISTER AND MY BROTHER ...
(Moi, Pierre Riviere, Ayant Egorge Ma Mere, Ma Soeur Et Mon Frere…)
(1976, France) Directed by Rene Allio

In 1835, in rural Normandy, Pierre Riviere, committed a horrific crime, slaying his mother, sister and brother. Based upon texts compiled by French philosopher Michel Foucault on the killings and subsequent criminal proceedings, Moi, Pierre Riviere… is an unflinching portrait of psychopathology, dramatizing psychiatry's first moorings to the judicial system. Director Rene Allio cast mainly non-professionals, actual villagers from the area where the original events took place, to portray the key roles of the murderer and his relatives and friends. Told from multiple perspectives, including the Pierre's own written confession, the film unfolds as a rich and complex examination of constructions of "truth" and "history".

Screenwriter: Rene Allio, Pascal Bonitzer. Cinematographer: Nurit Aviv. Editor: Sylvie Blanc. Cast: Claude Hebert, Joseph Leportier, Jacqueline Milliere. Presented in French dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 125 min.

Saturday September 6 2008, 7:30PM ( Online Ticket Sales Ended )

ANIMALS AND MORE ANIMALS
(Un Animal Des Animaux)
(1994, France) Directed by Nicolas Philibert

In 1965 the Gallery of Zoology in Paris' renowned Museum of Natural History was closed due to damages suffered as far back as World War II. Between 1991 and 1994, as the museum and its contents underwent extensive renovation, Philibert was there to document the process. As a crew of workers rebuilds the space, thousands of taxidermy preserved animals are resurrected from storage to be restored and reinstalled. Specialists work with scrupulous care--an elephant's skin is retouched with paint, a beaver is stuffed with straw, a single dislodged feather is reapplied. Philibert, likewise, gives the animals individual attention. Small portraits of foxes, fish, birds and reptiles--just a tiny segment of the museum's vast collection--evoke the fear and fascination behind man's relationship to nature, and reveal these creatures to be as much a product of imagination as science.

Producer: Serge Lalou. Cinematographer: Frederic Labourasse, Nicolas Philibert. Editor: Guy Lecorne. Presented in French dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 59 min.

LOUVRE CITY
(La Ville Louvre)
(1990, France) Directed by Nicolas Philibert

A portrait of Paris' venerable Louvre, the film presents the museum as a city within a city. 300,000 works of art and 1,200 employees fill the Louvre's vaulted corridors and many galleries. Miles of secret subterranean passages house stacks and reserves containing thousands of pictures, sculptures and objects. Cleaning people are depicted alongside curators alongside installers, technicians and restorers. Workers endlessly move priceless artworks, a group of women are taught to use fire extinguishers, curators arbitrate and a solitary robot sweeps a gallery. Philibert meticulously details almost every aspect of work within the structure with wit and wonder, blurring the boundaries between industrial and artistic labor, between the prosaic and the sublime.

Producer: Serge Lalou, Dominique Paini. Screenwriter: Nicolas Philibert. Cinematographer: Daniel Barrau, Richard Copans, Frederic Labourasse, Eric Millot, Eric Pittard. Editor: Marie H. Quinton. Presented in French dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 85 min.