Cinema: a deeply humanist season

For its final season at the Centre Pompidou, La cinémathèque du documentaire à la Bpi invites you to a huge world premiere. In association with Zipporah Films and Météore Films, we’re launching a full-length retrospective of Frederick Wiseman‘s work. 45 films, including 33 restored versions, will be shown over two seasons: autumn 2024 and winter 2025.

For Chapter 1, we present 25 Wiseman films from all eras. You’ll be able to see his first masterpiece (Titicut Follies) as well as his latest (Menus-Plaisirs: Les Troigros). The screenings will be accompanied by the filmmaker and numerous guests. Make a date for a much-anticipated masterclass on September 28.

The Bpi is thus continuing its important work of distributing Wiseman’s films in France. Through the Cinéma du réel festival since the 1979 screening of Sinai Field Mission, and many others over the years. Through its National Catalogue of Documentary Films, the Bpi has also closely and faithfully followed the development of Wiseman’s work. We know that many cinephiles, as well as researchers and filmmakers, discovered Wiseman within our walls. Last but not least, in 2006, the Bpi co-produced with the Cinémathèque française the last major retrospective of the filmmaker’s work in France.

Frederick Wiseman and his films will be a common thread running through our autumn, as the seminar organized with Ehess explores his work in 8 films and as many guests. As for the Cinémathèque idéale des banlieues du monde, it will cross paths between Wiseman’s In Jackson Heights and the collective film Urbanistes, accompanied by its team.

Other autumn highlights will have us looking to Eastern Europe. Firstly, to a Baltic country: the Lithuanian Season in France gives us the opportunity to present the complete works of Audrius Stonys in a restored version. With this dreamer and poet, cinema enables us to see better and more deeply than our human vision allows, to penetrate territories of the sensitive world. Join us on November 9 for his masterclass, or for one of the many screenings in his presence.

With our partner ARTE, the first chapter of Generation Ukraine immerses us in a tormented country. A collection of never-before-seen documentary films, produced and directed by Ukrainian filmmakers, explore the traumas that war continues to inflict on people, landscapes and the memory of an entire country.

The ciné-conférences of the Université permanente de Paris enter the election campaign, with Romain Lefebvre and films by Yves Jeuland, D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla.

Trésors du doc presents the famous Papuan trilogy, the pinnacle of documentary and ethnological cinema. Robin Anderson and Bob Connolly recount the first exchanges with Westerners. Les yeux doc à midi exposes the voice, scandalized and projected in a thousand splinters. La Fabrique des films welcomes Lola Peuch for her new film project. Les rencontres d’Images documentaires welcomes Jérôme Prieur and Clémence Davigo. Fenêtre sur festivals welcomes FLiMM, Festival libre du moyen-métrage. Du court, toujours presents films made by Fémis students. Finally, the Master DEMC (Documentary, writing of the contemporary world) invites Mosco Levi Boucault for its annual masterclass.

The screening with our major partner France Télévisions is an opportunity to discover Jean-Christophe Bonnet‘s film, never before seen in France. Finally, with Scam, we celebrate Simone Bitton with the Prix Charles Brabant, awarded to the filmmaker for her body of work.

We hope that many of you will come and share the extraordinary moments of cinema that we have imagined for you. On December 20, we invite you to an all-nighter of documentary cinema to celebrate seven years of programming, and many more to come.

To find out more, download the autumn program (PDF, 3 Mo) or view the full program on our agenda.