The cinema of France comprises the film industry and its film productions, whether made within the nation of France or by French film production companies abroad. It is the oldest and largest precursor of national cinemas in Europe, with primary influence also on the creation of national cinemas in Asia.
Luc Paul Maurice Besson is a French filmmaker. He directed or produced the films Subway (1985), The Big Blue (1988), and La Femme Nikita (1990). Associated with the Cinéma du look film movement, he has been nominated for a César Award for Best Director and Best Picture for his films Léon: The Professional (1994) and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999). He won Best Director and Best French Director for his sci-fi action film The Fifth Element (1997). He wrote and directed the sci-fi action film Lucy (2014) and the space opera film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017).
An art film, art cinema, or arthouse film is typically an independent film, aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. It is "intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal", "made primarily for aesthetic reasons rather than commercial profit", and containing "unconventional or highly symbolic content".
Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, particularly early ones, relate to arts in other disciplines: painting, dance, literature and poetry, or arise from research and development of new technical resources.
William Moritz, film historian, specialized in visual music and experimental animation. His principal published works concerned abstract filmmaker and painter Oskar Fischinger. He also wrote extensively on other visual music artists who worked with motion pictures, including James and John Whitney and Jordan Belson; Moritz also published on German cinema, Visual Music, color organs, experimental animation, avant-garde film and the California School of Color Music.
Cinéma du look was a French film movement of the 1980s and 1990s, analysed, for the first time, by French critic Raphaël Bassan in La Revue du Cinéma issue no. 449, May 1989, in which he classified Luc Besson, Jean-Jacques Beineix and Leos Carax as directors of the "look".
François Miron is a French-Canadian experimental filmmaker also working in documentary and fiction.
Chronopolis is a 1982 experimental stop motion science fiction film directed by Polish animator Piotr Kamler, with music composed by renowned composer Luc Ferrari, and, originally, narration by Michael Lonsdale. It was Kamler's first and only full-length film. The film won "Best Children's Film" at Fantafestival in 1982 and "Critics' Award - Special Mention" at Fantasporto, and it was shown out of competition alongside Patrick Bokanowski's L'ange at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival.
Raphaël Bassan is a French film critic and journalist, who has specialized in experimental film and the history of cinema. He has also made three short movies.
Vivian Ostrovsky is an experimental filmmaker and curator.
Haitian cinema includes the films and filmmakers of Haiti. The Haitian diaspora is active in the industry. Oppressive dictators and economic struggles have limited production.
Anton Perich is a Croatian-American filmmaker, photographer and video artist, born in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in 1945. He has lived and worked in New York City since 1970.
Michèle Bokanowski is a French composer. She was born in Cannes, and was educated in traditional music. She continued her studies in composition in Paris with Michel Puig and in electronic music in 1970 at the Service de la recherche de l’ORTF (ORTF) directed by Pierre Schaeffer. She also studied computer music at the Faculté de Vincennes and electronic music with Eliane Radigue.
Non-narrative film is an aesthetic of cinematic film that does not narrate, or relate "an event, whether real or imaginary". It is usually a form of art film or experimental film, not made for mass entertainment.
Patrick Bokanowski is a French filmmaker who makes experimental and animated films.
François Delisle is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor, actor, and composer.
Emmanuel-Alain Raynal is a French animation producer, author and gallery owner. He is mostly known for producing the Palme d'Or-winning short film 27 (2023), the feature film Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2022), winner of the Grand Prix at Anima Brussels, and the feature film Chicken for Linda! (2023), winner of the Cristal Award at the 2023 Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
The Woman Who Powders Herself is a 1972 French black-and-white experimental horror short film written, produced, and directed by Patrick Bokanowski. The short film, which contains no dialogue, follows a cast of masked figures engaging in a series of outlandish acts.
