Palmeraie et Désert

A new documentary by filmmaker-photographer Raymond Depardon – where justice and psychiatry meet.

For ten years, Raymond Depardon has followed the lives of farmer living in the mountain ranges. He allows us to enter their farms with astounding naturalness. This moving film speaks, with great serenity, of our roots and of the future of the people who work on the land. This the last part of Depardon's triptych "Profils paysans" about what it is like to be a farmer today in an isolated highland area in France. "La vie moderne" examines what has become of the persons he has followed for ten years, while featuring younger people who try to farm or raise cattle or poultry, come hell or high water.

Following the 1974 French presidential campaign with Valery Gicard d'Estaing

Second documentary of a trilogy produced on the long term (together with Profils paysans: l'approche (2001) and Profils paysans: La vie moderne (2008)), showing the simple lives of farmers in contemporary Southern France.

A journal, a voyage through time. He photographs France, she rediscovers the unseen footage he has so carefully kept: his first steps behind the camera, his TV reports from around the world, snatches of their memories and of our history.

The first of a documentary serie about rural France.

Miscellaneous images of African life.

Photography trip to Bolivia filmed with a rostrum camera and edited with original sounds from the country.

Documentary that follows the movement of the collage makers throughout France.

Loosely based on Diégo Brosset’s novel, set in the Sahara at the beginning of the twentieth century. A man of the desert is adopted by some hunters and becomes a highly respected guide while trying to escape colonization.

In the context of the World Aids Day on the 1st December 1994, the French Ministry of Defence commissioned the producer Raymond DEPARDON to make a film to show to all new French military recruits called up for their national service, in which they gave their 'personal' views on the AIDS (Sida) problem. Each year about 240.000 young men are called to do their military service in the French Armed Forces. They remain in bases both in France and in French overseas territories, the film will be projected throughout these multiple installations. The 'on camera" interviews by Depardon were authorised without any form of restriction by the military authorities, selecting a scattering of young men from all walks of life who will spend 10 months under the flag. They were each free to give their own personal opinions related to the Aids problem, without any form of censorship.

Using a rostrum camera, Raymond Depardon films a long series of photos, from the narrow streets of Paris to the endless desert, accompanied by original sounds of the city. A Cartier Foundation initiative for the contemporary arts.

This documentary is an autobiography based on director Depardon's voice, his face and pictures from his childhood which are all mixed together on screen and contrasted with selected pictures he shot between 1957 and 1977 and now comments on.

Documentary Short

The Garet farm is for sale. Brothers Jean and Raymond Depardon chat about the past and the future of the farm.

Raymond Depardon had photographed the city of Beirut before it was destroyed and rebuilt. He films a long take of his photographs, like a circular panorama, producing a videoclip for the song "Face à la mer" by french rock band Les Negresses Vertes.