Writer, director, essayist, historian - how do you describe Gérard Mordillat? Impossible. It's like trying to pigeonhole an 18th century encyclopedist or what we call an "honest man," in the old sense of the term. An inspired dabbler? Not that either, that would be terribly simplistic. No, what motivates Gérard Mordillat is elsewhere. Firstly, it's a tremendous curiosity, open to all winds and all horizons, to past and present alike, to our present dysfunctions as well as to the repressed origins from which they may have come. Everything interests him, the world of the present which he considers with the critical and sarcastic eye of an innocent Persian examining mores and customs at the French Court, the world of the past which we will never explore enough to understand the resistance of today, but also the world of tomorrow which none can foresee, unless it is to point out the aberrations and mistakes we must not repeat. Thus, for more than 30 years now, he have seen appear the most apparently diverse works, but all linked by the same clarity of vision and the determination to illuminate the shadow zones.

Novels (Vive la sociale, Rue des rigoles, Les Vivants et les Morts), films for theaters (Vive la sociale (Prix Jean Vigo), Billy ze Kick, Fucking Fernand), and the home screen (En Compagnie d'Antonin Artaud, L'Île atlantique), not to mention documentaries, like those he made with his friend and collaborator Jérôme Prieur, La Véritable Histoire d'Artaud le Momo, Jacques Prével, de colère et de haine, as well as that stunning documentary series on the legend and reality surrounding the very foundations of the Judaeo- Christian western world, Corpus Christi (10 hours 24 min.), L'Origine du christianisme (8 hours 40 min.) and L'Apocalypse (10 hours 24 min.). And that's just a quick, inevitably arbitrary glimpse of his total output. But you've understood: by choosing to honor Gérard Mordillat for its 2009 edition, the Fipa is only recognizing the talent and intelligence of a creative artist in perpetual motion who continually surprises us. May he continue for many years to come. A thoughtful look-out in an often overconfident world, an untiring questioner of our clear conscience, Gérard Mordillat ceaselessly challenges us, repeatedly raising in his work the basic question of man's justification in the universe.

Gérard Mordillat was born in the Belleville district of Paris. His father was an ironsmith for the French National Railways. He plied various trades, including that of print shop worker. He quickly grew interested in literature and film, a field in which he apprenticed as assistant director, in particular with René Allio. He published verse, worked with Roberto Rossellini (thanks to the cashier at the Cinémathèque Française), and edited the book pages of the French daily newspaper Libération, which he left in 1981, then drew attention with TV documentary about captains of French industry, La Voix de son maître. which he co-directed with Nicolas Philibert - refused by its sponsor, it was finally released in a Paris theater. This first film revealed a cinematic approach that stressed the social roots of its personalities. At his best when describing working-class environments, he directed his first, and largely autobiographical, feature in 1983, Vive la sociale!. based on his eponymous novel published two years earlier. The working-class suburbs were again humorously evoked in Billy-Ze-Kick in 1985 and Toujours seuls in 1991; while Fucking Fernand in 1987 revealed the director's absurdist, anti-established vein in its send-up of World War II, a treatment also reserved for the Algerian War in his 1989 Cher Frangin.

This non-conformist filmmaker negotiated an impressive change of direction with a fictional recreation of the last years of Antonin Artaud, starring Sami Frey, En compagnie d'Antonin Artaud. as well as a documentary on the same subject, La Véritable Histoire d'Artaud le Mômo which marked the beginning of his collaboration with Jérôme Prieur. In 1997, they conceived the 10-part documentary series on Jesus, Corpus Christi. which was aired on the Franco-German culture channel Arte. With Les Origines du christianisme in 2003 and L'Apocalypse in 2008, they explored the emergence of Christianity in the Judeo-Roman world.