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Alain Cavalier

Some film directors start with small, independent, highly personal projects and work towards bigger budgets, better teams and wider audiences. This is not the case of Alain Cavalier (Vendôme, France, 1931). A protégé of Louis Malle, he worked as his assistant on Ascenseur pour l'échafaud and The Lovers.

Cavalier's career got under way in the early 1960s with films that tackled burning political issues but remained fairly traditional in terms of film language. Over the years, he has moved away not only from openly political issues and fiction, but also from anything that resembles traditional production methods. In recent decades, he has created extremely personal, low-budget work so that he can “capture life better as a whole, in every detail”. He links the filming process with the process of life itself. The result: beautiful, everyday, profound films.

In collaboration with the French Institute Barcelona.