Paul Vecchiali Explained

Paul Vecchiali (28 April 1930 – 18 January 2023) was a French filmmaker and author.

Biography

Vecchiali was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, France. He spent his childhood in Toulon. His family, suspected of collaboration, preferred to leave this city after the war.

His cinema took as a starting point the French cinema of the 1930s, with an experimental and autobiographical tone. His best-known films are arguably Rosa la rose and Encore.^[1] His films were notably low-budget.^[1]

In 1987, he became the first director to link AIDS to homosexuality in a French film with his film Encore.^[2]

Vecchiali died in Paris on 18 January 2023, at the age of 92.^[3]

Filmography

• Les Ruses du diable (1965)
• L'Étrangleur (1972)
• Femmes Femmes (1974)
• Change pas de main (1975)
• La Machine (1977)
• Corps à cœur (1978)
• That's Life (C'est la vie) (1981)
• At the Top of the Stairs (1983)
• Rosa la rose, fille publique (1985)
• Encore / Once More (1988)
• The Guys in the Cafe (1989)
• Wonder Boy (1994)
• Zone Franche (1996)
• Love Reinvented (1997)
• Tears of AIDS (1999)
• A Vot' Bon Cœur (2004)
• A Diagonal Portrait of Paul Vecchiali (2005)
• Le Cancre (2016)

Bibliography

• Vesperales (2008)

References

1. Romain Charbon, 'Vesperales', in Têtu, October 2008, issue 137, page 32
2. Brigitte Rollet and James S. Williams, 'Visions of Excess: Filming/Writing the Gay Self in Collard's Savage Nights, in Gay Signatures: Gay and Lesbian Theory, Fiction and Film in France, 1945-1995, ed. Owen Heathcote, Alex Hughes, James S. Williams, Berg Publishers, 1998, page 195 https://books.google.com/books?id=xgCr1l3Dj-sC&pg=PA195&dq=%22paul+vecchiali%22&lr=
3. News: Le cinéaste Paul Vecchiali est mort . 19 January 2023 . Les Inrockuptibles . 18 January 2023.

Video recording of a lecture by film critic Anton Mazurov at the Institut Francais 12 2023: "Paul Vecchiali - the heir to the era of Jean Renoir" (rus)