Jean-Marie Buchet

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Jean-Marie Buchet is a Belgian author-filmmaker, born on February 24, 1938 in Jemappes, Belgium, near Mons.

Jean-Marie Buchet entered the Section of experimental cinema that La Cambre (ISAD, Institut Supérieur des Arts Décoratifs, an art school created by Henry Van de Velde) had just created in 1957. He studied mainly sound editing there and made 3 short films: "Discours" (Speech), "Comment se pendre" (How to hang himself), "that it will wire for sound" in 1974, and "Masques" in 1959, which he made in collaboration with Marc Lobet.

During his career, he directed short fictions, experimental films and documentaries. He is also the author of two full-length films: "La fugue de Suzanne" (Suzanne's Fugue, 1974) and "Mireille dans la vie des autres" (Mireille and the Others, 1979). In 1968, he collaborated with Robbe De Hert in the realization of committed films and, took part the same year in the creation of "Cinélibre". In addition to work as screenwriter, script-doctor, manager and director of production, Jean-Marie Buchet also directed until 2002 a workshop of writing of scenario at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB, ELICIT). He has been writing movie criticism in the "Grand Angle" review since 1996 and works in the service of film restoration at the royal Film Archive of Belgium since 1999.

At the age of twelve, Buchet said to a school-fellow, after having failed at an examination: "Later I will make cinema!" (in À chacun son cinéma, Édition Luc Pire/Cinergie, Brussels, 1995, p. 32). At nineteen, he entered the first class of cinema of La Cambre from which he holds an unforgettable memory (no budget, no equipment). After having worked at Meuter-Titra laboratories, he worked with the cameraman Willy Kurant. In 1963, he made the short film, "La journée de Monsieur Chose" (The day of Mr Chose [Thing]) and the following year, "Que peut-on bien faire chez soi le dimanche après-midi quand on n'a pas la télévision?" (What can we do on a Sunday afternoon, when we don't have a TV?). Five years later, he made "Hommage à Don" Helder Camara. In 1974, he directed Suzanne's Fugue, his first full-length film under conditions now unimaginable (200.000FB or US$5,000 budget). Five years later, with Mireille and the Others, a full-length film turned during six weeks, in studio, produced by Godfroid Courtmans. This was a film of humor, on the razor's edge, neighbors absurdity, a little with the manner of Czech films of the Sixties. Selected in San Remo and Moscow, the film does not obtain discounted public success. Buchet launched Pauvres mais Beaux (after the film "Poveri ma belli" from Dino Risi), a production house and turns over to the short film: a documentary, Les meilleurs in 1982 and Dupont Durand in 1989. During his later years, he wrote and directed some shorts. he now works on "Passions froides" a project of full-length film which he does not despair to carry out, in spite of resistance from his producer the last time.

[edit] Films

1957: Two things (Deux Choses): Conference (Conference) and How to be hang himself (Comment se pendre) (animation) 4'30"
1959: Masks (Masques, Co-director: Marc Lobet) 9'
1961: I love you (Je t'aime) 10'
1963: The day of Mr Thing (La journée de Monsieur Chose) 12'
1964: What can we make at home on a Sunday afternoon when we do not have a television? (Que peut-on bien faire chez soi le dimanche après-midi quand on a pas la télévision?) 18'
1967: The dead center (Le point mort) 20'
1970: Homage To Don Helder Camara (Hommage à Don Helder Camara) 11'
1974: Potemkine 3 15'
1974: The Running away of Suzanne (La Fugue de Suzanne) 140'
1974: Christmas' Trilogy (Triptyque de Noël) 25'
1974: Film 10'
1978: Your rights (Vos droits, TV serial)
1979: Mireille in the life of the others (Mireille dans la vie des autres) 86'.
- His principal film, similar to Rohmer, Akerman or Pialat of "Master key your vat initially", but with an irony to typically tighten wallone, even boraine (its area of origin located at the west of the town of Mons). A second full-length film of fiction, bitter-sweet, on the daily life of late teenagers who prefer to live rather than to launch themselves in the active life with its obsession for competitiveness and profitability. In a word, to live rather than to survive in a world that breaks the dreams and format the desires.
1982: Bests (The) (Les Meilleurs) 28'
1983: Arrêt d'autobus 3'50" (video)
1983: Mille milliards
1988: Paris-Tubize
1989: Dupond Durand 8'
2001: Horrible 12'
2004: A famous day (Characteristic: There is a version in French Une fameuse journée and another in Dutch, one minute round longer, entitled Een Rare Dag.)
2004: Saddam Hussein is alive and well and He Lives in Brussels
2006: Tasse de thé (Cup of tea).