Filmmaker, writer, critic, composer, producer, actor… With Paul Vecchiali passing at the beginning of this year, we lost one of the last great filmmakers of his generation. Both popular and experimental, a lover of the past and an inventor of forms, he worked at the very heart of the cinema while drawing his own margin. From Les Ruses du Diable (1965) to Un soupçon d’amour (2020), Paul Vecchiali has nurtured with a unique panache, for himself and for all those he has supported, produced or inspired, the highest idea of artistic sovereignty. But also a taste for risk and speed, and an indifference to power.
Because these values of audacity and generosity, independence and loyalty are those cultivated by FIDMarseille every year, celebrating Paul Vecchiali and his legacy seems obvious to us.
We had begun to work with him on a programme of films that would bring together his friends and admirers and pay him the warmest of tributes. From his immense body of work (more than seventy films), we have extracted seven gems. From July 4th to 9th, Paul Vecchiali’s cinema and spirit will be alive and vibrant, once more, among us.
As part of this homage, FIDMarseille is publishing Paul Vecchiali, once more, a collective work devoted to his entire career, in co-publication with Les éditions de l’œil.