YOUTH, THE UTOPIC YEARS AND NON-VIOLENT COMMITMENT

1957

• Birth.. near Chartres, in France

1974

• First exhibition of paintings First stirrings in cinema, outlines of scenarios…
• Began work as a farm labourer.

1975

• Creation of La Maison Jaune, an artists’ workshop, together with Césario Rachador and Jacques Morizeau
• Diverse exhibitions and publications >1978

1977

• Conscientious objector to military service, activist in favour of non-violence

1978

• Arrest by the military police and escape, start of underground existence
• Secret work as a printer at various self-run and alternative printers
• Birth of my daughter, Adèle
• A highly active and complex period, prosecuted five times by the Defence Minister for activism in favour of non-violence and for support of anti-militarist prisoners >1985

1980

• Birth of my son, Simon

1981

• February – Last conscientious objector to be tried by the military tribunal prior to their abolition, sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment, escaping a hearing "following an unusually violent contestation" as Le Monde wrote on 22nd February 
1981 in an article entitled "Military Tribunal judges slighted". Lawyer: Jacques Vergès
• May – Amnesty by François Mitterrand, end of living underground

1982

• Co-inventor of La Défense libre – the first French person subject to trial to get access to his file (legal precedent set by the case of Frédéric Joyeux).
• Author of the book La Défense libre au tribunal - Edition Vrac
• Co-Author, with Jacques Vergès, Elizabeth Auerbacher and Jean Lapeyrie of  Actes de la Défense Libre - Éditions Vrac
• Co-founder of Occupants rénovateurs -  the alternative and non-violent squatters’ movement which gave rise to the Droit Au Logement (DAL) organisation, which works for the benefit of the very poorest people
• Co-founder of the militant, self-run Primavera printers in Paris

1983

• In support of a friend behind bars for non-violence,  and in protest at all uniforms, marched naked along the Champs-Elysées in the company of about twenty other friends of both genders

1984

• February - Expulsion of the last Occupants-rénovateurs squats Featured on the front page of Libération, hanging from a gutter, in a photograph that has become famous
• October – Departure for Mayotte

OFF THE AFRICAN COAST

1984

• October – Technical Director of the Imprimerie Mahoraise on the island of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean.

1985

• I met my wife, Domi
• Buyout of the Imprimerie Mahoraise (100% on credit…) For five years, Domi and I worked on making our printers a driving force for local development. Our workforce increased from 5 to 50, and we created La Maison des Livres – the first bookstore, Graphitec – the first bush stationery distribution network -  to make school supplies accessible to children All of this was motivated by activism, and very little (too little?) by commercial goals

1986

• Birth of our son, Nicolas

1988

• Creation of Mayotte Matin – the island’s first and only publication to be independent of local political power

1989

• Birth of our daughter, Hélène
• Elected representative of the Mayotte Consular Chamber of Industry, as the only member independent of the dominant local political party and sole member of the opposition, facing 29 members of the majority party…

1990

• As beginner Managers with the goal of harassing certains local dignitaries, we found ourselves forced into bankruptcy. The adventure came to a close there, and we returned home to France, under duress, ruined

BACK IN FRANCE, BACK TO VISUAL CREATIVITY

1990

• Various posts held in the graphic arts sector in the Vendée and in Paris

1991

• Domi had a serious car accident

1992

• Move to Nantes and the creation, with Domi, of a graphic creation studio: Le Kwalé.
• Ever since its creation to date, artistic director of the Le Kwalé graphic creation studio

1994

• Winner of the Dotation Photo Service, for which the jury was chaired by Dominique Gaessler of Photographies Magazine

1995

• First photograph in a public collection, and as of this date, several exhibitions

1996

• Lecturer at the École Supérieure de l’Image in Angoulême, teaching the creation of images

1997

• Publication of a retrospective article on Le Kwalé and my work as a graphic designer for Étapes Graphiques – the French graphic design magazine
• Over the years, Le Kwalé became part of the artistic scene in Nantes, in the field of cultural and institutional communication > which continues to date

TO BE CONTINUED: THE CINEMA YEARS

1998

• Began writing Il aimait l’Afrique.
• Writing of various scenarios for shorts
• Creation of a first short: C’est terminé

1999

• CNC awards grant to rewrite the scenario of Il aimait l’Afrique, a full-length fiction
• The creation, with Domi and 27 friends, of 7e Œil, an associative audiovisual production company
• Production of twelve short films at 7e Œil >2003

2000

• Direction of Portrait d’un fils en souvenir du père, a 28-minute documentary, co-authored with Dominique Joyeux

2001

• Writing and rewriting of Il aimait l’Afrique completed, start of contacts made for production
• Start of shooting for Une petite fabrique de théâtre, documentary, co-authored with Dominique Joyeux Intermittent shoots until June 2003

2002

• Plus ou moins sept familles, Six 5-minute films, documentaries and video installation, co-authored with Dominique Joyeux and Marc Tsypkine de Kerblay (production, Cultural Agency).
• Sa-K-aD, a 6-minute film about breakdancing and hip-hop choreography
• Il aimait l’Afrique, full-length fiction Albert Dupontel agreed to play the principal role, several preparatory meetings with him and diverse other contacts with a view to setting up production of the film, in particular with Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre, for Mact Productions.

2003

• Ayé, a 7-minute documentary clip for the inauguration of Théâtre à la Coque

2003

• Une petite fabrique de théâtre,  17-minute model (!) for a documentary which was, in the end, never to be made
• Cinémagique, an original idea, co-author of the scenario, with Serge Boulier and Dominique Joyeux, direction of the video and cinema sections (production, Bouffou théâtre) – Theatre version: more than 100 performances
• A part entière, a 15-minute documentary about disabled people (co-authored with Thierry Massé, production, Ville de Saint-Herblain).
• Il aimait l’Afrique, a full-length fiction, project abandoned following refusal of an advance on earnings and from various TV channels and in spite of the project's advanced state, after five years of work Hard, very hard times…

2005

• Professor of cinema aesthetics at the École Supérieure d’Architecture de Nantes (Department of Set Design)
• Creation, with Domi, of the audiovisual production company L'Atelier des images

AND TO CONTINUE, THE ANIMATED YEARS

2006

• After two dark years following the failure of Il aimait l’Afrique, back to the cinema… This time, determined to work only on minor projects that wouldn’t carry the risk of swallowing me up.  Only at this point did I discover what was staring me in the face! That is, that where graphics and cinema meet, lies something about which I knew absolutely nothing: animated cinema. I decided to give it a try, convinced that I would find there “the opportunity to have fun with something new” which might allow me to bring together all of my previous experience. I knew nothing, from either a cultural or technical perspective. Then again, I was only fifty! And whilst I decided to teach myself how to use the software through a series of short films: Les lois de la gravité, I wrote an encyclopaedia of animated cinema, comprising about fifty biographies of the genre's main players, in order to explore this unknown field and find out what I was dipping my toes into. Incidentally, this set of texts is available to read on this website: Fous d'anim'...

2007

• Writing, with Léon Napias of Le rêve d'un Homme ridicule, adaptation to animation and hybrid video of  Dostoevsky’s monologue
• Financial support obtained from the Conseil Général de Loire Atlantique and the Conseil Régional des Pays de la Loire for Le rêve d'un homme ridicule – the first public financing of an animated film. Start of production of the film.

2008

• 24th January at 11am – Start of my first, extremely violent migraine: emergency room and all that … It was totally unrelated and yet related, because out of it emerged, one year later, the subject of the first of my films to achieve a certain level of visibility at festivals: A new life!
• Production of a small intermediate film, Vie et mort d’un oiseau, in which, to move away from Les lois de la gravité. I experimented with diverse techniques and aesthetics, especially in terms of animating drawings on tracing paper… A little film which would be ideal for showing on the day I am buried… but please note, I’m in no hurry!

2009

• March – Completion of Une nouvelle vie !
• May - Invitation to the Afrikabok au Festival in Senegal for Les lois de la gravité. This was the first significant date in my ‘new life’ as an animator, the one I will remember as being most moving, because it was my first invitation to a festival as a film-maker. No particular stakes, but a great, and very warm welcome, and… Ô symbolism: through animation, I reconnected with Africa!

2010

• February – My first real visibility at a major festival was to take place eight months later with the selection of Une nouvelle vie ! at the Festival de Clermont-Ferrand 2010 followed, in the spring, by that of the Festival d'Annecy.

And here we are today… in June 2010…Please see my News section, if you want to know what happened next!