Nicolas Philibert
male

Born on January 10, 1951 (74 years old)
From Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France
Known for Directing
Biography
Nicolas Philibert (French: [filibɛʁ]; born 10 January 1951) is a French documentary filmmaker. He has directed films since 1978. At the 73rd Berlinale (2023), he receives the Golden Bear for his film "On the Adamant". Philibert's father was a film lecturer and he attended his talks in his youth. This encouraged him to embark on a film career. He started this with René Allio (1970), as a trainee on Les Camisards as an assistant on Rude Journée pour la reine (1973) and assistant-director on Moi, Pierre Rivière, ayant égorgé ma mère, ma sœur et mon frère... (1975). In 1978 he co-directed with Gérard Mordillat a feature documentary His Master's Voice, in which a dozen bosses of big industrial groups discuss power, leadership, hierarchies and the role of unions. Between 1985 and 1987, he made several films about mountains and adventure for TV, then turned to making feature-length documentaries for theatrical distribution: La Ville Louvre (1990), Le Pays des sourds (1992), Un animal, des animaux (1995), La Moindre des choses (1996) - at the psychiatric clinic of La Borde, as well as an experimental film with the pupils of the theatre school Théâtre national de Strasbourg, Qui sait? (1998). In 2001, Nicolas Philibert made Être et avoir, about daily life in a single class school on a small village in the Auvergne. It won the Prix Louis Delluc 2002, and became a box office and critical success in France and internationally. The film was screened out of competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. With Retour en Normandie (2007), he revisited the traces of a previous films, made thirty years earlier by René Allio, with local peasants playing the lead roles. With Nénette (2010), made at the Ménagerie du Jardin des plantes in Paris, he produced an intimated portrait of the most famous of its inhabitants a female orang-utang, Nénette, held in captivity for 36 years. La Maison de la radio (2013), takes us into the heart of the French Radio headquarters in Paris, finding out who inhabits the place and discovering the mysteries of its long corridors. Over the last fifteen years there have been more than 120 retrospectives or 'homages' to Philibert organised internationally including the British Film Institute (London) and the Museum of Modern Art (New York). He was one of the directors invited to nominate his favourite films in the British Film Institute's 2012 poll. He explains, in French, his motivations, his influences (including Agnés Varda) and the history of his career as a documentary film maker, especially the 'impermeable' frontiers between documentary and drama in an interview recorded in April 2012.
Cast Credits
Crew Credits
- 2024
- 2023
- 2020
- 2018
- 2014
- 2013
La Maison de la Radio
as
Director
2013
- no image
Joël comme Collado
as
Director
2013
France Culture au Festival d'Avignon: 'Forcenés'
as
Director
2013
La Maison de la Radio
as
Writer
2013
- no image
Joël comme Collado
as
Director of Photography
2013
La Maison de la Radio
as
Editor
2013
France Culture au Festival d'Avignon: 'Forcenés'
as
Director of Photography
2013
- 2012
- 2011
- 2010
Nénette
as
Director
2010
- no image
The Screening
as
Director
2010
Nénette
as
Writer
2010
- no image
Night Falls on the Menagerie
as
Director of Photography
2010
- no image
The Screening
as
Director of Photography
2010
Nénette
as
Editor
2010
- no image
Night Falls on the Menagerie
as
Writer
2010
Nénette
as
Director of Photography
2010
- no image
The Screening
as
Editor
2010
- no image
Night Falls on the Menagerie
as
Editor
2010
- no image
Night Falls on the Menagerie
as
Director
2010
- 2009
- 2007
- 2002
To Be and to Have
as
Director
2002
To Be and to Have
as
Editor
2002
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The Invisible
as
Director
2002
To Be and to Have
as
Writer
2002
To Be and to Have
as
Camera Operator
2002
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Emmanuelle Laborit, Sign Shards
as
Director
2002
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What Drives the Taxidermist
as
Director
2002
- no image
What Drives the Taxidermist
as
Director of Photography
2002
- no image
The Invisible
as
Director of Photography
2002
- no image
What Drives the Taxidermist
as
Writer
2002
- 1999
- 1997
- 1995
- 1994
Animals and More Animals
as
Director
1994
Animals and More Animals
as
Writer
1994
- no image
Family Portraits
as
Director
1994
- no image
Metamorphosis of a Building
as
Writer
1994
- no image
Family Portraits
as
Writer
1994
- no image
In the Skin of a Badger
as
Writer
1994
- no image
Metamorphosis of a Building
as
Director
1994
- no image
In the Skin of a Badger
as
Director
1994
- 1992
- 1991
- 1990
- 1989
- 1988
- 1987
- 1986
- 1985
- 1979
- 1978
- 1977
- 1976
- 1974