Tristesse des anthropophages

© Sadness of the Anthropophagi (Jean-Denis Bonan, 1966)

Tristesse des anthropophages

In a world where everything is forbidden except what is obligatory, a man recalls for what reasons he came to work in a very strange fast food restaurant. Sadness of the Anthropophagi is a surreal political and social farce by French filmmaker Jean-Denis Bonan. The short film was censored in France in 1967. In May 1968, it was screened clandestinely in Paris, at the Les 3 Luxembourg cinema which was occupied by student protesters.

Bonan is a little-known filmmaker, even though he is the founder of Cinélutte, a collective of militant filmmakers that was important in the rise of the auteur documentary in France of the 1980s. Before that, he also co-founded the Atelier de Recherche Cinématographique (ARC), to whom we owe most of the footage shot during the May ‘68 events in Paris.

In May, Cinéma Nova will show a retrospective of Jean-Denis Bonan's work, restored and brought out of oblivion by distributor Luna Park Films.

Each screening, in the presence of the filmmaker and accompanied by film historian and critic Patrick Leboutte, will be followed by a reading of some of his poems by poet Domi Bergougnoux.