©Vincent Gouriou
After completing my Master’s degree in Film Studies, I was an AD, location manager and casting assistant for 5 years. I directed my first short fiction film in 2001. It won eight prizes in French festivals.
As I was interested in documentary and fiction – and I still am – I decided to create alternately in each genre.
In a diffusive or a direct way, most of my films deal with societal or political issues. Avril 50 : How to depict the death of a demonstrator when there are two opposing versions of that death? Derrière les arbres : Why choose to live outside the world ? La petite cérémonie* – fiction / Mathilde ou ce qui nous lie – documentary- : What does it mean to grieve and how to talk about it ?…
My first feature film The Tomorrows* focuses on a young female who meets a group of squatters who share a big house and very different ideas from her native environment. This fiction film released in 2012 on cinema screens after winning an Audience Award in Angers – Premiers Plans Festival and a Best Actress Award for Pauline Parigot at the Rabat Festival.
A Journey Through Islam* my second feature film was a journey through Islamic culture and civilization following the thoughts of Abdelwahab Meddeb, an erudite and open-minded Tunisian intellectual.
In December 2024, I ended the filmmaking of a 3-part fiction mini-series about motherhood and parenthood in a Creole family living in Britany : Si je veux.
Alongside writing and directing films, I am used to sharing my experience in courses or workshops for all kinds of audiences (troubled teenagers, abused women, elderly peple in retirement homes, inmates, etc…).
- * films with english subtitles / another two of my films also exist in english version : Bad seed
- Contre vents et marées
© Stéphane Philippe