Bertrand Bonello
Merowe Dam in North Sudan. Maher works in a traditional brickyard fed by the waters of the Nile. Every evening, he secretly wanders off into the desert to erect a mysterious construction made of mud. Despite a disturbing wound in his lower back that seems to be eating away at his skin, he continues his labor day after day. While the Sudanese people rise to claim their freedom, his mud creation starts slowly to take a life of its own.
Video #2 of Finite Rants, a series of eight visual essays commissioned by Fondazione Prada and curated by Luigi Alberto Cippini and Niccolò Gravina.
Haiti, 1962: A man is brought back from the dead only to be sent to the living hell of the sugarcane fields. In Paris, 55 years later, at the prestigious Légion d’honneur boarding school, a Haitian girl confesses an old family secret to a group of new friends - never imagining that this strange tale will convince a heartbroken classmate to do the unthinkable.
A documentary celebrating the work of Walerian Borowczyk, a director of unparalleled sensitivity, revered in the 1970s, who was later labeled as a maker of erotic movies.
Paris, one morning. A group of young people from different backgrounds. They launch into a strange ballet in the metro tunnels and the city's streets. They seem to follow a plan. Their gestures are precise, almost dangerous. They converge towards the same point, a department store, at the moment it is about to shut. Night begins.
An opera ballet that doesn't exist. A ghost-like piece, played in Opera Bastille and danced at Opera Garnier. An almost mystical link between both scenes. A musician is testing sounds in Bastille's pit. The choir are taking their place in the rehearsal studio. Both sides are fine tuning the work in progress of an opera ballet: Sarah Winchester, her grief, her madness, her home and her ghosts.
A companion to the director's Le Dos Rouge/Portrait of the Artist. A famous filmmaker works on his next film, which will focus on monstrosity. He is obsessed by the idea of finding a painting that will be central to the film and will crystallize all the power and beauty of monsters.
A famous filmmaker works on his next film, which will focus on monstrosity. He is obsessed by the idea of finding a painting that will be central to the film and will crystallize all the power and beauty of monsters. But what he doesn't show to anyone, not even his wife, is the mark on his back that keeps getting bigger. This red mark worries him, upsets him, and seems to want to tell him something...
1967-1976. As one of history's greatest fashion designers entered a decade of freedom, neither came out of it in one piece.
In Madeleine Among the Dead, Bonello wanted to tell Hitchcock’s Vertigo from the perspective of Madeleine (played by Kim Novak), not Scottie (James Stewart). He only filmed a scene of this project as part of another film by Antoine Barraud, Le Dos Rouge, in which Bonello plays the role of a director by the same name; a director whose films are all either invented or his “ghost-movies.”
A young woman begins a new life at the Apollonide bordello, a high-class brothel in Paris.
A few girls in an apartment. Across the street men are building a mosque.
Seventy critics and filmmakers discuss cinema around the conflict between the artist and the observer, the creator and the critic. Between 1998 and 2007, Kléber Mendonça Filho recorded testimonies about this relationship in Brazil, the United States and Europe, based on his experience as a critic.
Bertrand (Mathieu Amalric), a film director, is conducting research for his latest film, and asks a funeral director if he can stay back at his funeral parlour after the close of business. Bertrand cannot resist getting into a coffin, and accidentally knocks the lid down, locking himself in the coffin.
A woman wearing a pair of headphones listens to music. Using their eyes and ears, the audience shares this sensory experience through the mental pictures generated by the music.
Hervé is a 37-year-old porno movie actor. Weary of the excesses of this fringe universe, he decides to hang up his Condoman costume and turn over a new leaf as a mainstream movie actor. He thus enters a world he knows nothing about. Rejected by his fellow actors, Hervé is just dying to learn the rules of the game. He then encounters LZA...
Cindy, the doll is mine is a short film by French director Bertrand Bonello. It stars Italian actress Asia Argento in the double role of photographer Cindy Sherman, a brunette, and her model, a blonde who strangely resemble one another. The film was screened out of competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.
The film is a love story which tells the impossible tale of two youths who have never before met. The action unrolls in Paris between 1979 and 1980.
James visits his young brother David who has just opened a hairdressing salon. the two brothers do not agree on how to become a successful hairdesser.
Jacques Laurent made pornographic films in the 1970s and 80's, but had put that aside for 20 years. His artistic ideas, born of the '60s counter-culture, had elevated the entire genre. Older and paunchier, he is now directing a porno again. Jacques's artistry clashes with his financially-troubled producer's ideas about shooting hard-core sex. Jacques has been estranged from his son Joseph for years, since the son first learned the nature of the family business. They are now speaking again. Joseph and his friends want to recapture the idealism of 1968 with a protest. Separated from his wife, Jacques strives for personal renewal with plans to build a new house by himself...
Marguerite has been married to Paul for five years; miraculously the molecules in their pairing are still at work. Except for one thing: they live in Montreal, and molecules do not like the cold.
In the near future where emotions have become a threat, Gabrielle finally decides to purify her DNA in a machine that will immerse her in her previous lives and rid her of any strong feelings. She then meets Louis and feels a powerful connection, as if she has known him forever. A melodrama crossed by the genre, which unfolds over three distinct periods, 1910, 2014 and 2044.
