Kumu Documentary: Michel Gondry, Do It Yourself
Dir François Nemeta
France 2023, 79 min
In French and English, with English subtitles
Introduction by interdisciplinary artist Marta Vaarik.
If Méliès had a son, it would be Michel Gondry.
A brilliant jack-of-all-trades whose eccentric talent convinced the creative elite of international pop music to entrust him with their music videos (Björk, The Rolling Stones, Daft Punk, The White Stripes, Beck, et al.) before he charted his own course in Hollywood—without ever renouncing his rather crazy style — and became one of the rare Oscar-winning French film-makers (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).
For thirty years Michel Gondry has seized what surrounds us to create and tell the world about it. His works are constantly praised as wonders of craftsmanship: whether we consider his relationship to music and his beginnings as a videographer, the notion of magic inherent in his conception of images, his work’s roots in childhood and the world of dreams, the paradox of his Hollywood career, and the humanist ambition of his craftsmanship… which is also a political act. Do it yourself.
Michel Gondry, Do It Yourself, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, is directed by François Nemeta, an essential music video director (for Biolay, Souchon, Modjo and Bruni), who worked with Michel Gondry as his first assistant for ten years.
Distributer Seventine 2025.
