Filmmaker René Féret passed away during the night of Monday 27 March and the morning of Tuesday 28, 2015. He was sixty-five years old. His films explored the hidden undercurrents of family life and groups, and looked at characters living on the margins of society.
A discreet and autonomous filmmaker (he produced all his films), for a long time René Féret developed his filmography around the Gravet clan, an imaginary family from northern France, inspired by his own family history, whose adventures and stories would evolve from film to film, set against the backdrop of French history: La Communion solennelle (the film which brought him to the public's attention in 1977), Baptism (1988), and Les Frères Gravet (1995). He regularly cast members of his own family, as though wishing to extend the exploration of the subject.
René Féret also liked characters living on the margins of society, or who faced difficulties. He dealt with psychiatric confinement in Histoire de Paul (1975), hermaphroditism in Le Mystère Alexina (with illustrator Vuillemin in his only, and extraordinary, screen performance), the elderly in Rue du Retrait (2000), and cancer in Comme une étoile dans la nuit (2009).
For some years, he had focused on historical characters related to the world of art (Mozart's Sister, 2010), and Anton Chekhov 1890 (2015).
He leaves behind subtle and highly sensitive productions that deserve to be seen again.
