FEEL IT.STREAM
Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire

Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire

Directing

Biography

Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire (born 31 December 1968) is a French filmmaker, producer and screenwriter. He is best known as the director of films Johnny Mad Dog, A Prayer Before Dawn and Asphalt City. Sauvaire was born on 31 December 1968 in Paris, France. He currently lives in New York City. In 1991, Sauvaire started his film career as a first assistant director of the film Les Nuits Fauves by Cyril Collard. Then he joined the crew for the films Les Demons de Jesus and Les Grandes Bouches, directed by Bernie Bonvoisin; I Stand Alone directed by Gaspar Noé; Sous Les Pieds Des Femmes, directed by Rachida Krim; Hors Jeu, directed by Karim Dridi; Louise (Take 2), directed by Siegfried; and Love Me, directed by Laetitia Masson. He continued to work as an assistant director until 2000. At the end of 2000, he directed his three short films, La Mule (co-directed with Rossy De Palma), A Dios, and Matalo. In all three, he used the theme of violence among adolescents. In 2008, he made the film Johnny Mad Dog, co-produced with Mathieu Kassovitz. The film was later presented in the Official Selection, 'Un Certain Regard' section at the Cannes Film Festival, and won the Prix de l'Espoir. The film was an adaptation of the novel Johnny Chien Méchant by Congolese writer Emmanuel Dongala. It tells the story of a group of child soldiers fighting for the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebels in 2003, during the latter part of the Second Liberian Civil War. After the success of the film, Sauvaire directed the telefilm Punk in 2012, which was co-produced by Arte, with Paul Bartel and Béatrice Dalle. In 2017, he made the film A Prayer Before Dawn, which was adapted from the story of Billy Moore. The film received an official selection at the 70th Cannes Film Festival in 2017. In 2023, Sauvaire directed Black Flies, an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Shannon Burke, with Sean Penn and Tye Sheridan. The film was selected in competition at the 76th Cannes Film Festival in 2023. Source: Article "Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.

Known For

A Prayer Before Dawn
6.7

The amazing true story of Billy Moore, an English boxer incarcerated in Thailand’s most notorious prison. Thrown into a world of drugs and violence, he finds his best chance to escape is to fight his way out in prison Muay Thai tournaments.

A Prayer Before Dawn

2018
Asphalt City
6.2

A young paramedic is paired with a seasoned partner on the night shift in New York revealing a city in crisis. Discovering the chaos firsthand, he is tested with the ethical ambiguity that can be the difference between life and death.

Asphalt City

2023
Bizarre
5.3

Maurice, a reticent young homeless man, somehow manages to get by in Brooklyn; he spends his nights in parked cars until he finds himself at Bizarre, an underground club renowned for its burlesque shows. Maurice is fascinated by the club’s playful revues celebrating self-determined sexuality and creative otherness, and the two female club owners both adore him. He soon becomes a part of their self-selected family, and begins to bond with introverted Luka. But Maurice turns his back on Luka’s growing affection. Running away from his true emotions he drifts aimlessly through the city. He tries to find his feet at a boxing club, where he meets Charlie. Unable to withstand the pressure of his repressed feelings, Maurice unleashes a mounting foment of emotions, pervaded by tenderness and menace.

Bizarre

2015
Johnny Mad Dog
6.1

A cast of unknown performers are used in this drama about child soldiers fighting a war in an unnamed African country.

Johnny Mad Dog

2008
Savage Nights
6.5

Jean is young, gay, and promiscuous. Only after he meets one or two women, including Laura, does he come to realize his bisexuality. Jean has to overcome a personal crisis and a tough choice between Laura and his male lover Samy.

Savage Nights

1992
Welcome to New York
5.1

Mr. Devereaux is a powerful man. A man who handles billions of dollars every day. A man who controls the economic fate of nations. A man driven by a frenzied and unbridled sexual hunger. A man who dreamed of saving the world and who cannot save himself. A terrified man. A lost man.

Welcome to New York

2014
The Tenors
10.0

Henri Pompians, a former income tax inspector,has a dream: to become a lawyer.His first client Mr. Etienne has all the problems of the world: he doesn't feel well in his job, his wife doesn't care very much for his and he had an accident.Later Etienne and Henri become associate and they found the association "Justice for all" to help people.

The Tenors

1993
Why (Not) Brazil?
4.2

A film director, whose career is going downhill, reluctantly decides to adapt an inadaptable best selling novel. Will she succeed or will the book adapt her in the process?

Why (Not) Brazil?

2004
Les Démons de Jésus
6.6

Set in the late 1960s, a family of Gypsies live in a dilapidated pavilion in the western suburbs of Paris.

Les Démons de Jésus

1997
Heat Wave
4.7

One hot afternoon in the south of France, several paths are converging towards a tragic conclusion. Those involved are: Stéphane and Luigi, two cousins who have just emerged from adolescence; Georges, a retired old man; Amélie, Luigi’s girlfriend; and Amélie’s mother Anne. Little do they know how their lives, scarred by fear, humiliation and weariness, will become intertwined and propel them to a terrible outcome...

Heat Wave

2011
Les Grandes Bouches
6.1

This is a suspense drama about Esther, Lamar, and Zed, three friends who live together. Tired of having financial problems, they decide to hit it big somehow. They visit Armand, a former 'Godfather' who has now retired. They soon realize that, in contrast to their world of easy living with few responsibilities, Armand's world belongs to the underground with its own code of behavior. Their involvement in that world brings them face to face with events they had never imagined before.

Les Grandes Bouches

1999
A Dios
7.0

A Colombian kid walks around in his neighborhood with his imaginary TV frame.

A Dios

2001
Foul Play
7.0

In this French comedy-drama, actor Angelo Bastiani installs satellite dishes when not auditioning for films. After being told he's not convincing enough for a role in a gangster flick, Ange dons a mask and stages a parking-lot holdup, terrifying the film's director and casting director to prove his point.

Foul Play

1998
Love Me
5.9

Laetita Masson directs this hallucinatory dream-like work about dancing on the beach, Elvis impersonators, and sailors longing to live and work in Taipei. Sandrine Kiberlain, Johnny Hallyday, and Julian Sands are just a few of the many cast members.

Love Me

2000
The Mule
6.0

A Colombian woman arrives at a French airport, she acts suspiciously and appears to be concealing something in her locked case. However a search of her bags and her body reveal something customs didn't expect.

The Mule

2000
Louise (Take 2)
6.1

The central role of Louise is portrayed by Elodie Bouchez, who won a 1998 Cannes "Best Actress" award for The Dreamlife of Angels. When Louise has an encounter with homeless Remi (Roschdy Zem), they have a magnetic attraction, but she is already attached to illiterate shoplifter and pickpocket punk Yaya (Gerald Thomassin). Although allied with Yaya in petty crimes, Louise lives with her widowed father (Lou Castel), a devoted writer of fiction. After a Metro bum (Bruce Myers) tells her of his desire to see his young son, she plucks the kid, Gaby (Antoine de Merle), right out of school, making him the newest rookie recruited into their subway gang. Shoplifting in a department store, the young toughs escape the store's security guards by hiding in the ballet rehearsal rooms of the nearby opera. But does Louise really belong with the subway toughs, or is she just pretending? When she's arrested, Louise is forced to reexamine her lifestyle.

Louise (Take 2)

1999
Sous les pieds des femmes
9.0

This romantic, political drama is about the reunion of an Algerian woman who abandoned her lover 35 years earlier to live in France, and the lover who chose to stay in Algeria and fight the French colonials.

Sous les pieds des femmes

1997
Punk
5.2

An intense and solitary teenager, Paul finds himself caught up in a journey for freedom, full of violence, betrayal and hope. Abandoned by his father, torn between his mother, with whom he maintains a tender if tormented relationship, and his punk friends, with whom he hangs out at concerts, parties and street fights, he lives fully in the present. At a concert, Paul meets Louise and falls in love. But something is missing, and he continues searching for the father who never recognized him.

Punk

2012
Éclats de famille
8.5

Marguerite Mercier is a retired seamstress who lives in an old apartment.A real estate agent has come to her apartment looking for Mr. Alphonse Caron, the companion of Marguerite who died some years again.Marguerite has made up a lot of excuses.But Leon , the cabinetmaker of the neighborhood says Marguerite that she must find a fake husband.So Marguerite proposes Leon to be her fake husband.The real estate agent comes again and Leon transformed in Alphonse asks him to go away.In a park Marguerite and Leon meet a boy Sebastien ,who falls from a skate roller and his little sister Stéphanie.They go to the hospital with them.There Marguerite knows Véronique , the mother of the children

Éclats de famille

1995
Carlitos Medellin
6.4

This documentary reveals the most violent part of the most violent city (Medellin) of the most violent country (Colombia) in the world. For around 75 minutes, different people from Medellin explain how difficult it is to live and survive in a city where violence, weapons, killing is common. Everyday, someone you know may die or get wounded by one of the different armed factions that struggle throughout the country and in the cities to take control over the population, drug cartel, politics, etc... sometimes for no reasons at all but fun.

Carlitos Medellin

2004