The Geographies of DAR

Between the nostalgia of resurfacing roots and the desire to venture into song to experience a rebirth, Nicolas Maury reveals himself unguarded before Didier Varrod, with a deeply moving sincerity. Nicolas Maury released his first album, La porcelaine de Limoges, in January 2023—a new experience for this unique, demanding, and multifaceted actor. It is an opportunity to paint an intimate portrait of him through an extended interview on a train between Paris and Limoges. In this specific setting, which was also that of his first (silent) film role with Patrice Chéreau in Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train, Nicolas discovers archives and hears from close acquaintances who speak about him. A documentary film, like a kind of initiation rite, it moves back and forth between memories of France and childhood, and his condition as a man and artist today, taking on a new identity through music.

RICHARD WRIGHT was an African-American author of novels, short stories and non-fiction that dealt with powerful themes and controversial topics. Much of his works concerned racial themes that helped redefine discussions of race relations in America in the mid-20th century. Born on a plantation in Mississippi, Wright was a descendent of the first slaves who arrived in Jamestown Massachusetts. This program follows his arduous path from sharecropper to literary giant. Through authors like H.L. Menken, Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, he discovered that literature could be used as a catalyst for social change. In 1937 Wright moved to New York and his work began to garner national attention for it's political and social commentary. Much of Wright's writing focused on the African American community and experience; his novel Native Son won him a Guggenheim Fellowship and was adapted to the Broadway stage with Orson Welles directing in 1941.

An examination of the life of great Russian author Leo Tolstoy, who penned the 1877 novel Anna Karenina.

Armando Iannucci presents a personal argument in praise of the genius of Charles Dickens. Through the prism of the author's most autobiographical novel, David Copperfield, Armando looks beyond Dickens - the national institution - and instead explores the qualities of Dickens's work that still make him one of the best British writers. While Dickens is often celebrated for his powerful depictions of Victorian England and his role as a social reformer, this programme foregrounds the elements of his writing which make him worth reading, as much for what he tells us about ourselves in the twenty-first century as our ancestors in the nineteenth. Armando argues that Dickens's remarkable use of language and his extraordinary gift for creating characters make him a startlingly experimental and psychologically penetrating writer who demands not just to be adapted for television but to be read and read again.

She was the first to study gorillas in their natural environment: the high mountains of Rwanda, where she settled in 1967. For nearly twenty years, Dian Fossey lived with the gorillas, observed their behavior, and changed the way people viewed them. Her relentless fight against poaching prevented the species from becoming extinct. But in December 1985, the primatologist was murdered, and the mystery surrounding her death remains unsolved. Former colleagues, scientists, and biographers shed light on the impact of her work, but also on the darker sides of her personality and her uncompromising commitment.

Travel back to Victorian Britain and wander the cobbled streets of Haworth to the sites that inspired the great Brontë sisters’ classic novels.

A poetic look at the life and legacy of legendary author Philip K. Dick (1928-1982), who wrote over a hundred short stories and 44 novels of mind-bending sci-fi, exploring themes of authority, drugs, theology, mental illness and much more.

The English novelist, John Le Carré discusses his life as a secret agent and writer in this documentary about spies in fact and fiction, produced for British television.

A documentary 33 years in the making. A director and friend of Kurt Vonnegut seeks through his archives to create the first film featuring the revolutionary late writer.

Hugues Aufray, l'éternel jeune homme

A documentary about the legendary series of nationally televised debates in 1968 between two great public intellectuals, the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. Intended as commentary on the issues of their day, these vitriolic and explosive encounters came to define the modern era of public discourse in the media, marking the big bang moment of our contemporary media landscape when spectacle trumped content and argument replaced substance. Best of Enemies delves into the entangled biographies of these two great thinkers, and luxuriates in the language and the theater of their debates, begging the question, "What has television done to the way we discuss politics in our democracy today?"

Yael Naim - Une nouvelle âme

C.S. Lewis's biographer A.N. Wilson goes in search of the man behind Narnia, a highly secretive man whose personal life was marked by the loss of the three women he most loved.

A 2008 documentary about Japanese author Haruki Murakami

Swedish documentary from 2012. "A devilish man who can do many arts". A portrait of August Strindberg (1849-1912), which in addition to his authorship also devoted to alchemy, photography, painting and music.

A feature-length documentary on the life of one of the last surviving actresses from the golden age of Hollywood – Joan Collins. This epic film is told from the ringside as Joan narrates her rollercoaster life story with her inimitable wit and verve. A worldwide television phenomenon with her decade-defining role in Dynasty, Collins shares her extraordinary archive and never before seen home movie footage, giving an intimate glimpse into one of the world’s most iconic figures. Against a backdrop of Collins’s own narration, her story showcases the extraordinary life of a woman who has lived through the glitz, the glamour and the enduring moments of Hollywood history, and survived it all with panache.

The Mindscape of Alan Moore is a psychedelic journey into one of the world's most powerful minds; chronicling the life and work of Alan Moore, author of several acclaimed graphic novels, including "From Hell," "Watchmen" and "V for Vendetta." It is the only feature film production on which Alan Moore has collaborated, with permission to use his work. Alan Moore presents the story of his development as an artist, starting with his childhood and working through to his comics career and impact on that medium, and his emerging interest in magic.

18 months in the making, this documentary follows Pulitzer-winning author Annie Proulx across the American West as she researches and writes her next book, "That Old Ace in the Hole.'

L'acte de la beauté

Mircea Eliade was a traditionalist Romanian novelist and philosopher. Following the disaster of the Second World War, he moved to Paris and Chicago, becoming a respected and influential historian of religions. He acquired something of the status of a guru, as poignantly told in the 1987 documentary Mircea Eliade et la redécouverte du sacré. The film features interviews with Eliade at the end of his life, artfully spliced with cuts to religious imagery on a background of moving spiritual music. It was released in 1987, the year after his death.