100 minutes / Color
French / English subtitles
Release: 2018
Copyright: 2012
JOURNAL DE FRANCE is included in the same DVD box set with 12 DAYS and FRANCE (LES HABITANTS).
Travelling alone, internationally acclaimed photographer and filmmaker Raymond Depardon spent six years capturing his home country with a large format camera. This long, solitary road trip provided fertile ground for the creation, with his long-time partner and collaborator Claudine Nougaret, of a remarkable travel journal.
The journey returned Depardon to important places from his past as a reporter—Chad, Venice, Cannes—and to a wealth of previously unseen footage from his archive: an interview with Jean-Bédel Bokassa, film of Jean-Luc Godard, extraordinary glimpses of private and public life.
Intimate, compelling, revelatory, JOURNAL DE FRANCE offers a unique portrait of a country and its landscapes, an overview of a truly illustrious career and a fascinating resume of the development of the photographic art over the past half-century.
"A fascinating introduction to one of France's major filmmakers." —Time Out
"A tribute to a masterful eye, a humanistic heart and a wondrous life." —Variety
"[Offers] up an enticing amuse-bouche to an artist whose body of work has become essential viewing." —The Hollywood Reporter
"This fascinating film really belongs to those people whose names never made the history books, barely even their local newspaper headlines." —Sight and Sound
"An insight into the emergence of Depardon's still influential 'direct cinema' aesthetic, and an affectionate portrait of a unique visual artist and cultural archivist." —The Observer
"An engrossing and valuable personal record of the work of photographer and filmmaker Raymond Depardon." —The Guardian
"Combines an artistic perspective with a journalistic spirit. Recommended for students of photography, journalism and documentary." —Educational Media Reviews Online (EMRO)
Select Accolades
Documentarist Raymond Depardon travels through provincial France in a camper, gathering conversations with people from all walks of life.
Raymond Depardon | 2018 | 84 minutes | Color | French | English subtitles
Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme's legendary portrait of Paris and Parisians at the close of the Algerian war.
Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme | 2013 | 145 minutes | English; French | English subtitles
In her essential final feature, Chantal Akerman documents her relationship with her mother, a Holocaust survivor.
Chantal Akerman | 2016 | 115 minutes | Color | English; French | English subtitles
Filmmaker-photographer Raymond Depardon chronicles the patients of a psychiatric ward where justice and madness meet.
Raymond Depardon | 2018 | 87 minutes | Color | French | English subtitles
