Philippe Vallois

Johan details the director's quest for an actor to play his titular lover, the real deal having been incarcerated just prior to shooting on charges of petty theft.

During the final days of World War II, a simple French peasant rescues a wounded German soldier and nurses him back to health. As their playful camaraderie grows, two young men who should be enemies begin to bond in ways neither thought possible.

Between 1975 and 1983 a new kind of film could be seen in French cinema : home-grown gay pornography. The films were shot in 16mm and most of them were passed and given certificates by the CNC (National Cinema Centre). They were screened in a small number of Parisian cinemas dedicated to gay pornographic films : Le Dragon, La Marotte and Le Hollywood Boulevard as well as several in the provinces. They were essentially the work of three production companies : Les Films de La Troïka (Norbert Terry), AMT Productions (Anne-Marie Tensi) and Les Films du Vertbois (principally Jacques Scandelari). The genre met an untimely end with the advent of video, the last being made in 1983 "Mon ami, mon amour (My friend, my lover)". Since then, gay pornography has not been screened in French cinemas. This film is the result of five years of painstaking research and investigation. It features extensive interviews with the directors and actors illustrated by numerous extracts from their films.

As Gerard is shooting a documentary in Marrakesh, he turns his camera toward a young Moroccan boy: Saïd. A love story starts and it will bring Gerard all over Morocco. Through encounters, love adventures, youth's memories, Gerard tries to define his destiny so tied to Morocco.

Between 1975 and 1983 a new kind of film could be seen in French cinema: home-grown gay pornography. They were essentially the work of three production companies: Les Films de La Troika (Norbert Terry), AMT Productions (Anne-Marie Tensi) and Les Films du Vertbois (principally Jacques Scandelari). The genre met an untimely end with the advent of video, the last being made in 1983 'Mon Ami, Mon Amour (My Friend, my Lover)'.

A team of amateur filmmakers sets off, camera in hand, to the south of Morocco. During their stay, one of the members of the group, Fanette, a vulgar vampire, is murdered. The Moroccan police do not find the culprit, and Paris takes over the case. The inspector in charge of the investigation decides to view all the "works" made on site, in the presence of their author.

Clement, a 60 years old teacher, retires and live alone with his Cat Zeus. One night, the cat becomes a man to entertain Clement in his loneliness and to help him accept his true sexual attraction.

A reporter enters the world of bodybuilding at a time when there has just been a death at the gym. He befriends an unusually gregarious bodybuilder there.

From his childhood in a modest family in the Pyrénées to his unexpected career as a porn actor in the 1970s, the film traces the life of Claude Loir, who set out to fully embrace life. His homosexuality and curiosity guide him through encounters that lead into the shadowy, liberated circles of a pre-AIDS era, caught between conservatism and sexual freedom. Loves and lovers, flamboyance and fragility… the film offers a striking portrait of a fearless, hedonistic man navigating desire, identity, and society’s constraints.

Marc, owner of a pretty mansion in Normandy, suffers from a form of dementia: he loses the meaning of words and he travels in his imagination to Asia where he had his professional life. His wife entrusts him for a while to a neighbor who tries to unravel the mysteries of his past.

During an evening, men and women talk about love, life and death. One of them catches a moth and explains to the others the tragic fate of this insect. Everyone recognizes himself in the little animal.

Beirut in ruins in 1994, a presbytery in the heart of a French forest, a stopover in Morocco... A man destroyed by his lover's death tries to get on with life, helped by meeting a man he helps to come out.

Upset by his friend's death, the film-maker, central character in this film, decides to get in touch with the hereafter by means of a camcorder. Thus begins an initiatory voyage that is both amusing and moving. The camcorder has the power to surprise people in their authenticity, to interfere in destinies, to give access to higher states of consciousness. Where does fiction begin and end?

May 1973: While hitchhiking home from the Cannes festival, Jean-Jacques, a young heterosexual man, rather homophobic, gets lost in the Cévennes mountains. He finds refuge with an elderly gentleman who not only admits his homosexuality, but claims to be Jean-Jacques decades later.

May 1973: By coming back from the Cannes film festival, a young hitch-hiker, lost at nightfall, finds refuge in a farm where a old man, claims his homosexuality and pretends to come from the future.

In the mid-nineties, a young writer, victim of AIDS, wants to ensure from the beyond that his lover receives a camera with supernatural powers, hoping that this will revive his lover's will to live and connect with him.

As he gradually turns mad, the dancer Nijinsky evokes the important episodes of his life. In costumes and sets of lush beauty, the divine puppet performs in a final show where the secondary characters are named: Diaghilev, Isadora Duncan, Stravinsky, Auguste Rodin, Léon Bakst.

After the death of his mother, during a stay in Morocco, the director takes again his own archive images in connection with the important moments of his life.

Philippe Vallois has been directing fiction and documentary films in France since 1974. In Brazil, a few years ago, the handsome Bruno Hilario discovered Vallois' film Johan during his film studies , and fell in love with it. Now director of the Belo Horizonte film library, he worked like the devil to finance Philippe's visit to Brazil with seven of his films. The director not only travels there with his camera, but also takes advantage of the experience to look back on his work, which is often linked to his love affairs and trials.

Christine Spengler's colorful personality contrasts with the darkness of her works. In an intimate setting, Philippe Vallois invites us to a dialogue with the artist about her life and work, on all fronts, from her childhood in Spain to her most striking portraits.