--- name: "Jacques Doillon" canonical: "https://film.one/person/jacques-doillon" fi1m_id: "jacques-doillon" imdb_id: "nm0230695" tmdb_id: 118020 wikidata_id: "Q710650" roles: ["Director"] born: "15 March 1944" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "director" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-10-06T04:34:51.280740+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Jacques Doillon ## Identity Jacques Doillon - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/jacques-doillon - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** jacques-doillon - **IMDb ID:** nm0230695 - **TMDB ID:** 118020 - **Wikidata ID:** Q710650 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Doillon, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q710650, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0230695/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/118020 Director. Born 15 March 1944 in Paris, France. ## Details - **Work:** Director - **Born:** 15 March 1944, Paris, France - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Doillon, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q710650, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0230695/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/118020 ## Fi1m on Jacques Doillon > Jacques Doillon puts children and couples in a room, sets the camera at their height and lets them talk until something true comes out. With children he has few equals; with adults the talk can run on past the point. A four-year-old with her arm in a cast is told that Jesus died and rose again, and takes it as a procedure. Later a girl at school explains that you can become a child of God if you pass certain tests, and she sits them. That is the middle of *Ponette* (1996), and it is Jacques Doillon's method in miniature: put a child among other children, set the camera at their height, and let them argue in long takes until the adult idea has become something they can use. Mostly there is no grown-up on screen to tell us how to feel. He came to directing from the cutting room, as an assistant editor on Alain Robbe-Grillet's *Trans-Europ-Express* (1966). After a co-directed first feature, *L'An 01* (1973), his solo debut *Les Doigts dans la tête* (1974) set the pattern: youth, non-professionals, watching rather than plotting. *Un sac de billes* (1975) found a public, and for the next two decades he made roughly a film a year about children, adolescents and couples. *Ponette* was the one that travelled. *Raja* (2003), *Rodin* (2017) and *CE2* (2021) have followed, all built the same way: a few people, a few rooms, a great deal of talk. The children are what works. Doillon has said it is always to the actors he goes to find the truth of a scene, and with a four-year-old that means rehearsing to catch a reaction rather than manufacture one. In *Ponette* we laughed at the cousins arguing about heaven with the seriousness of lawyers, then remembered what the girl was trying to buy with all that theology, and stopped. Victoire Thivisol is not performing grief; she is somewhere inside it, and the film sits beside her. Caroline Champetier, who has shot five of his films, keeps the camera close and low, and Brune Compagnon has worked on several of the scripts, *Ponette* included. The method has a cost, and it is the same cost each time. Scenes go round the loop: a child insists, the others correct her, she tries a new ritual, and in *Ponette* we felt it idle for a quarter of an hour. With adults the problem grows, because grown-ups given that much room talk like people who have read books, and some reviewers have found the dialogue of his adolescent and couple films, *Le Jeune Werther* (1993) among them, verbose and over-thought; *Rodin* was called mannered and short of momentum. We also came out of *Ponette* wondering how he got those scenes from a child that small, and whether we should be easy with it. He would say the wildness is the point and that grown actors lose it. We are not sure that settles anything. Start with *Ponette*. If it holds you, the shelf behind it is long; if the children's talk wears thin, the adults will not help. ## Biography Jacques Doillon is a French film director and screenwriter. Born on 15 March 1944 in Paris, he began working in film as an assistant editor on features including Alain Robbe-Grillet’s *Trans-Europ-Express* (1967) before directing his first feature, *L’An 01*, in 1973. He is known for films such as *Ponette* (1996), on which he served as director and writer, *Rodin* (2017), *Le Petit Criminel* (1990) and *La Drôlesse* (1979). Several of his films have screened at major festivals, including entries at Berlin where *Le Petit Criminel* received an Honourable Mention and *Le Jeune Werther* won the Blue Angel Award. *Sources: fr.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org, the-numbers.com, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *Ponette* (1996), Fi1m 84, Writer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/ponette.md) ## Complete filmography (45) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Third Grade* (2021), Writer, Director - *Rodin* (2017), Writer, Director - *Love Battles* (2013), Director, Screenplay, Producer - *You, Me and Us* (2012), Writer, Director - *La tête la première* (2012), as L'écrivan - *The Three-way Wedding* (2010), Writer, Director - *Just Anybody* (2008), Director, Writer - *A Perfect Couple* (2006), as Jacques - *Raja* (2003), Director, Writer - *Jane Birkin... Mother of All Babes* (2003), Thanks - *Carrément à l'ouest* (2001), Director, Writer - *Little Brothers* (1999), Writer, Director - *Too Much (Little) Love* (1998), Director, Writer - *Ponette* (1996), Writer, Director — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/film/ponette.md) - *Deep in My Heart - Germaine and Benjamin* (1994), Writer, Director - *Germaine et Benjamin* (1994), series, Director, Creator - *Un homme à la mer* (1993), Director, Writer - *Young Werther* (1993), Director, Writer - *Lover* (1992), Director, Writer - *Lest We Forget* (1991), Director - *The Little Gangster* (1990), Director, Screenplay - *A Woman's Revenge* (1990), Screenplay, Director - *Pour un oui ou pour un non* (1989), Director - *The 15 Year Old Girl* (1989), as Willy · Director, Writer - *Women in Love* (1987), Writer, Director - *Comédie !* (1987), Director, Writer - *The Prude* (1986), Screenplay, Director - *The Temptation of Isabelle* (1985), Director, Writer - *She Spent So Many Hours Under the Sun Lamps* (1985), Actor - *Family Life* (1985), Director, Screenplay - *La Pirate* (1984), Director, Writer - *Monsieur Abel* (1983), Writer, Director - *The Prodigal Daughter* (1981), Director, Writer - *The Hussy* (1979), Director, Writer - *The Crying Woman* (1979), as Jacques · Director, Screenplay, Dialogue - *A Bag of Marbles* (1975), Director, Writer - *Cinéma 16* (1975), series, Director - *Touched in the Head* (1974), Director, Writer - *The Year 01* (1973), Director, Producer - *Laissés pour compte* (1973), Director - *Le Feu sacré* (1972), Editor - *Too Small My Friend* (1971), Editor - *On ne se dit pas tout entre époux* (1970), Director - *Paris top secret* (1969), Editor - *Les pieds dans les nuages (et la tête dans la lune)* (1966), Editor ## Gallery - ![Jacques Doillon](https://film.one/media/person/6751094/gallery-920115da7e4c.jpg) Jacques Doillon — Vincent Courtois, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Jacques_Doillon_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Jacques Doillon](https://film.one/media/person/6751094/gallery-da018e0ccef3.jpg) Jacques Doillon — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Other awards — 2 won, 6 nominated - Prix France Culture Cinéma 2004: Prix France Culture Cinéma (won) - César Award for Best Director 1991: César Award for Best Director (nominated), for *The Little Gangster* - César Award for Best Film 1991: César Award for Best Film (nominated), for *The Little Gangster* - César Award for Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation 1991: César Award for Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation (nominated), for *The Little Gangster* - European Film Award for Best Film 1991: European Film Award for Best Film (nominated), for *The Little Gangster* - Louis Delluc Prize 1990: Louis Delluc Prize (won), for *The Little Gangster* - César Award for Best Director 1980: César Award for Best Director (nominated), for *The Hussy* - César Award for Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation 1980: César Award for Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation (nominated), for *The Hussy* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/jacques-doillon