IFcinéma: three films to plunge you into the world of Maurice Pialat

Published on 4 February 2026

On its IFcinéma platform, which offers a catalog of French films and a catalog of African films from the Cinémathèque Afrique for non-commercial public screenings, the Institut français regularly enriches its offering with new thematic cycles. Designed to accompany and inspire the programming of the French cultural network abroad, these cycles echo major contemporary issues as well as French and international highlights, such as the cycle devoted to Maurice Pialat.

Maurice Pialat cycle

This cycle of three films invites us to (re)discover Maurice Pialat, an essential figure in French cinematic heritage and winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. His work, renowned for its artistic rigor and modernity, explores with rare intensity the major stages of life: childhood, family, love, couples, solitude and the quest for meaning.

Through a staging as close as possible to human beings and remarkable direction of the actors - Sandrine Bonnaire, Isabelle Huppert, Jean Yanne, Marlène Jobert - Pialat captures emotions of striking truth, which resonate fully with contemporary audiences.

This three-film tour thus offers a sensitive and accessible approach to an essential auteur, whose influence remains vivid in today's cinema. Thanks to the richness of the themes addressed, the cycle can also be used as an opportunity for discussion and debate with the public, in conjunction with cultural and educational partners.

This cycle is designed to accompany the programming of the French cultural network abroad and its partners, while also providing an educational tool for teachers. Indeed, heritage cinema meets a strong expectation of the network, which will be able to design screenings followed by debates or consider inviting talent.

Moreover, the work of Maurice Pialat occupies an important place in film education and is the subject of in-depth studies in many schools. The resources available on IFcinéma thus provide dedicated resources designed to facilitate the organization of activities and accompany mediation actions around the films.

View the cycle on IFcinéma (access reserved for members of the French cultural network)

The films in the cycle

Jean, a "forty-year-old teenager" and failed filmmaker, is married to Françoise, a woman his own age with whom he lives, probably more out of a need for protection than affection. For the past six years, he has had a twenty-five-year-old mistress, Catherine, who is very much in love with him and whom he treats with little respect, even though he is attached to her. The film is the story of the death of a couple through clashes, arguments, separations and returns. Until, fed up, Catherine decides to marry a man more socially respectable than Jean, with whom she will leave, leaving Jean in despair.

Suzanne is sixteen. She discovers that it's hard to love, but easy to sleep, even with men she doesn't love. For her, pleasure is just a way of not dying. She lives her life like a wild animal, in a miniskirt and crazy hair. With her hard gaze and her pout, she expresses nothing but her violence.

When Vincent Van Gogh arrives in Auvers-sur-Oise for treatment by Dr. Gachet, he has two months to live. Pialat invents for him a love story with Gachet's daughter, and wraps him in a daily life of light and shadow, where shadow has the last word. This is not Van Gogh's story, but a powerful evocation of his last days.