Patrice Chéreau

The title is something a real artist said about his own funeral. Chéreau’s handheld camera stays inches from the faces of a dead painter’s friends as they ride three hours from Paris to Limoges, shut in one carriage with everything they’ve never said. — It’s early morning in Paris and the painter Jean-Baptiste is dead. He wanted to be buried in Limoges, three hours to the south, so the people from every corner of his life, old lovers, family and friends, board the same train. The journey takes three hours, they share a single carriage, and there’s nothing to do but talk. — Official Selection | Cannes Film Festival | 1998 Best Director | César Awards | 1999 Best Supporting Actress (Dominique Blanc) | César Awards | 1999

Every Wednesday afternoon a woman comes to Jay’s flat for sex, with no names, no talk and nothing before or after. Patrice Chéreau (“Queen Margot”) won the Golden Bear in Berlin for this provocative film and Kerry Fox took the Silver. It’s grimy, erotic and lonely, and it all hangs on who she is. — Jay works behind a bar in London and lives alone in a flat that’s almost empty. Every Wednesday afternoon a woman shows up, they have sex, and she leaves without a word, though neither of them even knows the other’s name. One day Jay follows her, first to a small theatre and then to her home, where a husband and son are waiting. — Golden Bear | Berlin International Film Festival | 2001 Best Actress (Kerry Fox) | Berlin International Film Festival | 2001 Nominated for Best Director | César Awards | 2002 Nominated for Best European Film | European Film Awards | 2001

Patrice Chéreau (“Queen Margot”) adapted a Joseph Conrad story into a film where black and white slips smoothly into colour and sepia. Isabelle Huppert plays a wife who has kept her thoughts to herself for years, and once she starts speaking her mind, things get unpleasant. — At the start of the twentieth century, Jean and Gabrielle Hervey open their home to Parisian society every Thursday. One afternoon Jean finds a letter on the hall table telling him his wife has left him for another man. Gabrielle is back within the hour, but neither of them can put it out of their minds. — Best Production Design | César Awards | 2006 Best Costume Design | César Awards | 2006 Nominated for Best Actress (Isabelle Huppert) | César Awards | 2006 Nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay | César Awards | 2006 Official Selection | Venice Film Festival | 2005

Isabelle Adjani (“Possession”) plays Margot and Cannes winner Virna Lisi is Catherine de’ Medici in a painterly, unflinching take on Alexandre Dumas’s famous novel, set at a court full of sex and death where nobody can be trusted. Poison and blood flow freely to Goran Bregović’s score. — In 1572 Catherine de’ Medici marries her Catholic daughter Margot to the Huguenot Henri de Navarre, hoping the match will keep the peace between the two faiths. Margot herself prefers a lover from the streets to the husband she’s been given. Days after the wedding, the Protestants who came to Paris for it begin to die, and Margot hides one of the wounded in her rooms. — Nominated for Best Costume Design | Oscars | 1995 Best Actress (Virna Lisi) | Cannes Film Festival | 1994 Jury Prize | Cannes Film Festival | 1994 Nominated for Best Non-English Language Film | Golden Globes | 1995 Best Actress (Isabelle Adjani) | César Awards | 1995 Best Supporting Actor (Jean-Hugues Anglade) | César Awards | 1995 Best Supporting Actress (Virna Lisi) | César Awards | 1995 Best Cinematography | César Awards | 1995 Best Costume Design | César Awards | 1995