When Tarantino talked about Lautner...

Posted on 14.10.2023

The OCS bouquet is a long-standing partner of the Lumière film festival. Its director, Guillaume Jouhet, looks back on a well-established synergy.

Usually, when we can't make it to the Lumière film festival, we catch up on the films with OCS. Will that be the case this year?

Absolutely, thanks to a rich programme centred around Wim Wenders, which I have endeavoured to arrange. I have my work cut out for me: six documentaries on a wide variety of subjects, and ten fiction films. But the boundaries between these two major cinematic categories are not always that watertight with him... We are also programming a documentary, Wim Wenders: desperado, which looks back at the emblematic places in the filmmaker's career. In short, viewers will be able to experience the festival as if they were there!

Which OCS documentaries will be presented at the festival?

Two very impressive films, one about James Stewart and the other about filmmaker Dorothy Arzner, directed by the Kuperberg sisters, with whom we work regularly. We were able to rediscover Arzner at the festival a few years ago. We also have a number of documentaries on the air, one devoted to Michel Simon, another to René Clément and, from Saturday 14 October, Simenon est Maigret, an investigation into an author and his character, which we are accompanying with two films by Jean Delannoy starring Jean Gabin in the role of the inspector. We feature around forty documentaries a year, some of which remain available for several years. After that, their fate is out of our hands, but it would be good to be able to catalogue this abundant contribution to the history of cinema!

Personally, what is your fondest memory of the Lumière film festival and which screening are you particularly looking forward to this year?

Certainly a coffee lasting over an hour and a half with Quentin Tarantino, where we talked about Georges Lautner, much to my surprise. This year, I will not miss the concert of film music in tribute to Bertrand Tavernier.

Interview by A. D.