20/11/2006

A wealth of homages were paid yesterday to director Francis Girod following the announcement of his death from a heart attack in Bordeaux early Sunday morning.

The 61 year-old filmmaker, a former president of SACD (French directors and playwrights association), was also a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and the Cinémathèque française board of management.

Girod started his directing career in 1974 with The Infernal Trio (starring Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider) and went on to make 14 features, including 1980’s The Woman Banker (also starring Schneider), 1984’s Le bon plaisir (starring Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Louis Trintignant), L'Enfance de l'art, which was selected in official competition at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, and 1990’s The Elegant Criminal with Daniel Auteuil, who also starred in 1996’s Death in Therapy.

The director’s last film – A Perfect Friend [+see also:
trailer
film profile], starring Antoine de Caunes and Carole Bouquet – was shown at a special screening at the Berlin Film Festival this year.

French President Jacques Chirac paid his respects to the director yesterday, stating that his death "has plunged French cinema, of which he was one of the greats as well as a tireless campaigner, into deep mourning". Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said Girod was "well-known and valued in his profession, which he defended with conviction, intelligence and generosity".

Minister of Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres described him as an '"ardent defender of French and European cinema”, and at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year Gilles Jacob referred to the director as an "artist keenly committed to campaigning against injustice in all its forms."

CNCDirector General Véronique Cayla said Girod "knew how to make a humanist film but one without concessions that revealed the complexity of human nature", and was a filmmaker with "an irresistible sense of humour even in the most difficult moments."

(Translated from French)