Serge Toubiana
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Serge Toubiana | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 15 August 1949 (age 75) |
| Occupation | Historian |
Serge Albert Toubiana, born on 15 August 1949 in Sousse, Tunisia, is a French journalist and film critic. He served as the director of the Cinémathèque Française from 2003 to 2016. From July 2017 to July 2023, he was the president of Unifrance, the organization promoting French cinema internationally.
Biography
[edit]Serge Toubiana was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in Tunisia. His father was a watchmaker, and his mother was a schoolteacher. In 1962, due to the [[Bizerte Crisis, his family relocated to Grenoble, France. His first significant memory of cinema was watching La Strada by Federico Fellini in 1956, a film that left him with a strong sense of fear and claustrophobia, which he revisited in 2009 during a retrospective at the Cinémathèque.[1]
He studied in Grenoble (at Lycée Champollion, where Jean-Louis Leutrat was his teacher) before moving to Paris in 1971 to study film at Paris 3 - Sorbonne Nouvelle (Censier Center). In late 1972, he joined Cahiers du Cinéma, a leading film journal during its Maoist period, becoming close to the critic Serge Daney, a relationship that lasted until Daney's death in 1992. Toubiana later became editor-in-chief of Cahiers and contributed to its re-engagement with cinema, particularly through articles on François Truffaut, for whom he later co-wrote a biography.[2]
In 1981, after Serge Daney left Cahiers du Cinéma for Libération, Toubiana took over as editor-in-chief. During his tenure, Cahiers featured important issues like tributes to Truffaut and explorations of international cinema scenes, such as “Made in USA,” “Made in Hong Kong,” and “Made in USSR.” He remained editor until 1996 and left Cahiers entirely in 2000. During the 1990s, he worked on several significant projects, including managing "Premier Siècle de Cinéma" and serving as a Cannes Film Festival jury member in 1992.[3]
In 2003, Toubiana was appointed director of the Cinémathèque Française. He led the institution through a major renovation and reorganization until his departure in 2015. Toubiana was then elected president of Unifrance in 2017, where he oversaw important reforms, including the merger of Unifrance with TV France International.
Personal life
[edit]Toubiana was the partner of novelist Emmanuèle Bernheim, who passed away in 2017. He published a memoir in 2022 titled Le Fils de la Maîtresse, which won the Marcel-Pagnol Prize. In this memoir, he reflects on his mother's role as a teacher and how he sees his own career as a teacher of cinema, transmitting his love of film.[4][5]
Controversies and Positions
[edit]Toubiana has been involved in several public controversies, including his defense of Roman Polanski, whom he supported following Polanski's 2009 arrest related to a 1977 sexual abuse case. Toubiana also signed a 2023 petition defending Gérard Depardieu amid accusations of sexual misconduct.[6][7]
Filmography
[edit]- 1976 : Moi, Pierre Rivière, ayant égorgé ma mère, ma sœur et mon frère... de René Allio (co-scénariste)
- 2001 : Une vie pour jouer,[8] documentaire sur Isabelle Huppert (scénariste et réalisateur)
- 2015 : Hitchcock/Truffaut, film documentaire (scénariste)
- 2024 : Truffaut par Truffaut, film documentaire de David Teboul (scénariste) - en préparation
Publications
[edit]- Les Fantômes du souvenir, Grasset, 2016
- Le Temps de voir, Seuil, 2017
- Les Bouées jaunes, Stock, 2018
- L'Amie américaine, Stock, 2020
- Le Fils de la maîtresse, Arléa, 2022, lauréat du prix Marcel-Pagnol 2022[9]
Collaborations
[edit]- Jean-Michel Frodon, Marc Nicolas et Serge Toubiana (dir.), Le Cinéma vers son deuxième siècle, Le Monde Éditions, 1995
- With Arthur Miller, The Misfits : chronique d'un tournage par les photographes de Magnum, 1999
- With Antoine de Baecque, François Truffaut, Gallimard, Paris, 2001
- With Raymond Depardon, Le Désert américain, 2007
- With Micheline Presle, L'Arrière mémoire, entretiens
- With Nathalie Azoulai, Ozu et nous, Arléa, 2021
Honors and Philanthropy
[edit]In addition to his work in film and literature, Toubiana has been recognized with honors such as the Officer of the Legion of Honour in 2015. In 2021, he established the “Vendredi soir” endowment fund in memory of Emmanuèle Bernheim, providing six annual scholarships to support artistic and literary creation.
References
[edit]- ^ "Le Fils de la maîtresse de Serge Toubiana: grandir sous un projecteur". Le Figaro. 9 March 2022.
- ^ "Serge Toubiana, juré du Festival de Cannes en 1992 : « Je voulais donner la Palme d'or à The Player »". parismatch.com. 17 May 2023.
- ^ "Trois questions à Serge Toubiana, directeur de la Cinémathèque". 3 October 2014 – via Le Monde.
- ^ Péron, Didier. "Serge Toubiana: "dès qu'il y a de la violence, ma vision rétrécit"". Libération.
- ^ "Récit. Serge Toubiana dans la lumière d'Emmanuèle Bernheim". 3 January 2018 – via Le Monde.
- ^ "Un remake du " Mépris " ébranle la Cinémathèque française". 4 February 2016 – via Le Monde.
- ^ Roussel, Frédérique; Gester, Julien. "Derrière la cinéphilie, le drame des "petites gens" de la Cinémathèque". Libération.
- ^ "Isabelle Huppert, une vie pour jouer". www.film-documentaire.fr.
- ^ "Les six romans de la sélection du prix Marcel-Pagnol 2022". ActuaLitté.com (in French). Retrieved 30 June 2022..
