
Léon Poirier
Directing
Biography
Léon Poirier (25 August 1884 – 27 June 1968) was a French film director, screenwriter and film producer best known for his silent films from 1913 onwards. He directed some 25 films between 1913 and 1949. His most famous film today is Verdun: Visions of History, a drama-documentary depicting the World War I Battle of Verdun. His later films adopted a form of poetic realism influenced by pictorialist photography.
Known For

The story of Charles de Foucauld, born September 15, 1858 in Strasbourg (France) and died December 1, 1916 in Tamanrasset in Algeria during the French colonial period, was a cavalry officer of the French army who became an explorer and geographer, then Catholic religious, priest, linguist and hermit in the Hoggar desert in Algeria.
The Call

A visitor from the western front tells young children, in a sober commentary, about the battle of Verdun.
Verdun, memories of history

A dramatized re-enactment and documentary of the Battle of Verdun as seen by both French and German soldiers, shot on site of the actual battle.
Verdun: Visions of History

The Yellow Cruise is a French documentary film initially directed by André Sauvage and taken over by Léon Poirier following the intervention of André Citroën. The film was presented in Paris in 1934. André Sauvage was hired by the Pathé-Natan company to follow the yellow cruise through Asia. In 1931 and 1932, forty-two men, including Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, scholars and doctors traveled thirty thousand kilometers on the Silk Road through the Middle and Far East, in caterpillar propellants. Together, despite the bad weather, the difficulties of the terrain, the mechanical failures and the political conflicts, they reached Beijing on February 12, 1932. André Citroën who asked to see the film, dissatisfied with the result, bought it from Bernard Natan and entrusted the editing by Léon Poirier, who had filmed La Croisière Noire in Africa in 1926. This film will mark the break in the film career of André Sauvage.
The Yellow Cruise

The Moroccan adventure of Charles de Foucauld, explorer in Morocco, in 1883-1884. The ex-officer's contact with the wisdom of the Koran, the mores of the natives, the solitude on the edge of the oases made him rediscover his faith and already we guessed in him the future Father de Foucauld.
The Unknown Road

Jeannou lives in a castle in Périgord with his father, the last man of aristocratic lineage landowners, very attached to traditions. She meets Peter, a young engineer, she joined in Paris, decided to marry her. A few months later, pregnant, she returned to the area where the wedding will be celebrated.
Jeannou
Geneviève is an orphan child and living with her little sister Josette. Because of her economic situation, she cancels marriage with an honest and respectful man. Josette, after a short and tremendous love affair, dies leaving a little baby boy. Due to this incident, Geneviève is convicted and imprisoned. Wandering from town to town, village to village, she finally manages to get to her ancient fiance's house.
Geneviève

Loosely based on Balzac's novel "La peau de chagrin", the story revolves around a man who steals a small, magical figurine named Narayana.
Narayana

During the war from '14-'18, two women travel by foot in the North of France and Belgium to aid an organization to provide information to the English
Sisters-in-Arms

No description available.
The Jade Casket
No description available.
L'affaire du courrier de Lyon

In the lands of Brière a bitter dispute broke out over the draining of marshes for brick making. An old man, Aoustin, leads the resistance and refuses to give the hand of his daughter Théotiste to a young peasant, Jeannin, who supports it.
La Brière

The voyages of Pierre Savorgnan de Brassa through Africa. This great explorer, the founder of Brazzaville (Congo), was born in Italy but chose France as his motherland.
Brazza, or The Epic of the Congo
Directed by Léon Poirier.
Le penseur
No description available.
Amours exotiques

Adaptation of a romantic Lamartine poem. A youth leaves a monastery where he has stayed, after the anti-religious terror of the Revolution. He befriends a youth who turns out to be a girl. But his former bishop calls Jocelyn back to duty.
Jocelyn

The stages of car manufacturing in the immense Citroën factories on the Quai de Javel in Paris, from the foundry to the assembly lines, right through to the finishing touches. We observe the workers' precise tasks, the pace of production, and the employees' daily lives.
Autopolis

A stoker, dissatisfied with his job, escapes from his ship to an island where he lives with a native girl. Eventually he is picked up by a passing steamer.
Rama, the Cannibal Girl
Toward the close of World War I, European railroads in Djibouti are under siege by bands of indigenous warriors, while one of the white employees falls for a mysterious woman tied to the rebels.
La voie sans disque

This non-fiction feature produced by the Citroen automobile company features a car which makes a trip across the African continent.