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Jean-Michel Carré

Jean-Michel Carré

Directing

Biography

Jean-Michel Carré, born July 26, 1948, in Paris, is a French film director, documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, film producer, and screenwriter. Coming from a modest background, he first studied medicine before turning to filmmaking, a passion he cultivated since his adolescence. He attended IDHEC (now La Fémis), where he earned degrees in filmmaking and directing. From the very beginning, Carré was committed to militant and activist filmmaking. In 1968, he made a documentary on Cuba, which was banned from broadcast, marking the beginning of his commitment to denouncing social and political injustices. In 1974, he co-founded the first censored film festival, affirming his desire to bring about social change through his works. He founded the production company Les Films Grain de Sable, dedicated to criticizing social institutions and systems. His filmography is rich and varied, including documentaries and fiction films that address themes such as working conditions, human rights, and social struggles. Among his notable works are The Putin System (2007), I (Have a Very Bad Day at Work) (2007), and Sex Workers (2010). Carré is also known for his immersive approach to documentaries. For example, for Burning Coals (2000), he spent a year with miners in Wales to capture their reality with authenticity. His work has received numerous awards, including the FIGRA Grand Jury Prize for Kursk: A Submarine in Troubled Waters (2004). His commitment is not limited to cinema, as he has also explored international issues such as apartheid, conflicts in the Middle East, and transformations in China. In 2013, he spoke of his libertarian Maoist past, a contradiction he accepts to explain his interest in complex and nuanced subjects.

Known For

Infrarouge
6.0

French current affair show

Infrarouge

2006
The World in Front
9.7

Weekly current affairs show

The World in Front

1987
Masculin/Féminin
N/A

Five female directors and five male directors tackle the contemporary male/female relationships through 10 fictions.

Masculin/Féminin

2003
Lest We Forget
7.0

A compilation of 30 French filmmakers, Alain Resnais and Jean Luc Godard among them, who use film to make a plea on behalf of a political prisoner. Jean Luc Godard and Anne Marie Mieville's film concerns the plight of Thomas Wanggai, West Papuan activist who has since died in prison. The short films were commissioned by Amnesty International.

Lest We Forget

1991
Chine, le nouvel Empire
8.0

No description available.

Chine, le nouvel Empire

2013
Putin: The New Empire
7.4

Since Russia was brought to its knees in the 1990s by crippling debt and the grip of the oligarchs following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Putin has made it his mission to return superpower status to Russia. While not partisan to Putin's wrongs, this insightful doc examines the logic and motivations of Putin's vilified regime, and why he is so loved in his homeland.

Putin: The New Empire

2016
Christiania
8.0

Freetown Christiania, also known as Christiania, is an intentional community and commune of about 850 to 1,000 residents, covering 7.7 hectares (19 acres) in the borough of Christianshavn in the Danish capital city of Copenhagen. Christiania has been a source of controversy since its creation in a squatted military area in 1971. Its cannabis trade was tolerated by authorities until 2004. Since then, relations between Christiania and Danish authorities have been strained.

Christiania

1977
Visiblement je vous aime
4.7

A misanthropic Parisian street punk learns some difficult lessons after being captured for assaulting and robbing a man in this interesting French drama. This has not been the first time young Denis Lavant has been in trouble, and this time the judge sentences him to the Coral, an experimental open community founded in 1975 by Claude Sigala, in the wilderness of the Camargue. There he encounters a group of inmates just as neurotic and messed up as he is.

Visiblement je vous aime

1995
Burning Coal
10.0

In 1994, an economist decision by British Coal to close "Tower Colliery" in Aberdare (South Wales), convinced its miners boasting a generationally long history of political activism, that what they had was worth fighting for. In unanimous vote to buy out the company, every miner pledged 8,000£, many relinquishing severance pay. Then union leaders, Tyrone O'Sullivan and a few other miners, decided to become businessmen.

Burning Coal

2000
Galères de femmes
N/A

This documentary follows a number of French women prisoners during the time of their imprisonment and after their release. Many of them are "in" for minor drug and prostitution-related offenses, and at least half of them are HIV positive. One woman promises she will kill herself before her beauty fades from the AIDS syndrome: two years later the filmmaker captures her, wan and wasted, but out of prison. Most of these women have grave difficulties finding work or housing when they are released, and are forced to resort to the same desperate measures that got them incarcerated in the first place.

Galères de femmes

1993
The Battle of Production
10.0

In 1997, the committed filmmaker Jean Asselmeyer, armed with his camera, posed the following question at the General Assembly of Documentary Film in Lussas and in Paris: Is it possible today to make a committed creative documentary?, to René Vautier, Thierry Garrel, Jean-Michel Carré, Jean-Marie Barbe, Yves Jeanneau, Alexandre Cornu, Lapilli films, Jean-François Raynaud, Samir Abdallah and many others, not the least of whom.

The Battle of Production

1998
Tino
4.0

A contemporary scenario, in which American journalist Doug Ireland visits Europe and meets an oppressed young Arab man, is played against the celebrated story of Emperor Hadrian’s relationship with his favourite Antinous.

Tino

1985
La mort de l'utopie
N/A

1974 saw the end of beans. The Halles were being destroyed. The extreme left was hesitating between the Molotof cocktail. The heirs of May '68 had not yet taken power, and desire was still in the streets. The characters seek an escape from their social alienation. We don't know whether they're living their desires or prisoners of hallucinations.

La mort de l'utopie

1975
The Putin System
7.4

The Putin System is a documentary chronicling Putin’s rise to power in Russia along with the implications for ordinary Russian people. Russia is once again flexing its muscles. This time its weapons are not the Red Army or its nuclear arsenal, but the huge energy resources lying under the Siberian tundra. Vladimir Putin is the man responsible for the reemergence of Russia as a global power, but how much is really known about him and his ascendance? This film explores his journey to the highest echelons of the Kremlin and contextualizes his rise against a newly belligerent Russia nostalgic for the past glories of the Soviet empire. This investigative documentary covers 30 years in the history of Russia through the personal history of Vladimir Putin: a man who has single-mindedly played all the rules of the game to reach the throne of power.

The Putin System

2007
J'ai (très) mal au travail
N/A

Stress, harassment, violence, depression and suicide are the themes the media evoke with increasing frequency when it comes to the world of work. Jean-Michel Carré spent over a year conducting a basic investigation into how the French relate to work and the way it is organized by new management methods. The film seeks to gauge the cost in pain or pleasure when an employee manufactures, resists, creates, finds fulfilment or breaks down.

J'ai (très) mal au travail

2007
Drôle de genre
5.3

Dominique Bazin is a 40-year-old woman, business manager, married to Camille, English teacher. They have three children, including an infant. Dominique, a modern day superwoman, divides her time between her lover Maxime, her work meetings and her family life. Camille is a perfect housekeeper and a caring father, who unknowingly suffers from his routine lifestyle.

Drôle de genre

2003
Les Travailleu(r)ses du Sexe
5.5

No description available.

Les Travailleu(r)ses du Sexe

2010
China, One Million Artists
N/A

Documentary charting the rise of Chinese art following the death of Mao, and how some artists embraced Western styles while other critiqued it by hijacking communist propaganda.

China, One Million Artists

2018
Kursk: A Submarine in Troubled Waters
6.2

No description available.

Kursk: A Submarine in Troubled Waters

2004
Alertez les bébés
7.0

No description available.

Alertez les bébés

1978