Encyclopedia of French Film Directors

366 • ESCRIVA, AMALIA
made his fi lm debut as assistant director on mountain
movies shot by Marcel Ichac (1945–1948). A true adventurer,
he spent ten days at 800 meters under the
surface of the earth in a chasm fi lming Le Gouffre de la
Pierre Saint-Martin, a speleological documentary that
won the 1952 Grand Prix du Documentaire Français.
From 1948 to 1956, he took part as a fi lmmaker in
seven expeditions led by Commandant Jacques-Yves
Cousteau. In 1956, he was a war correspondent during
the Suez Expedition. The same year, Robert Bresson
hired him to play a part in Un Condamné à Mort
s’est échappé / USA: A Man Escaped. In 1960, he became
a reporter for Cinq Colonnes à la Une, the most
famous French TV world current affairs program,
which led him to co-produce Sept Jours du Monde, a
weekly TV program covering the major international
events of the past seven days. In 1967, he directed
his fi rst fi ctional work, L’Homme du Picardie, one of
the most successful French TV series. He co-wrote
an episode from the L’Heure Simenon TV series (“Le
Temps d’Anaïs”) and a TV movie (1999 Premier de
Cordée, Pierre-Antoine Hiroz, Edouard Niermans).
Filmography
1948 Padirac, Rivière de la Nuit (documentary; short;
co-director with Marcel Ichac and the Malle
Brothers)
1952 Le Gouffre de la Pierre Saint-Martin (documentary)
1954 La Haute Route (documentary)
1955 La Fontaine de Vaucluse (documentary; short;
co-director with Louis Malle)
1957 La Galère engloutie (documentary; short; codirector
with Jacques-Yves Cousteau)
1959 Les Etoiles de Midi (documentary; co-director
with Marcel Ichac)
1962 Ski total (documentary; short)
Vive le Tour (documentary; short; co-director
with Louis Malle)
1963 Le Maillon et la Chaîne (documentary; codirector
with Bernard Gorki; shot in 1961)
1966 Les Rendez-vous de l’Eté (documentary short;
co-director with Raymond Zumstein)
La Chair du Diable (short)
1968 Les Neiges de Grenoble (documentary; codirector
with Jean-Jacques Languepin)
1970 Kaléidoscope (documentary; short)
1975 Mort d’un Guide (shot in 1974)
1978 Ne pleure pas / USA: Don’t Cry (also coscreenwriter,
co-adapter, co-director)
Television Filmography
1968 L’Homme du Picardie (40 13')
1971 François Gaillard ou La Vie des Autres (8 55';
episodes: “René,” “Michel,” “Louis,” “Pierre,”
“Julien,” “Cécile et Nicolas,” “Joseph,” “Madeleine”)
1972 La Tuile à Loups
1973 La Ligne de Démarcation (13 26'; thirteen
episodes)
1977 La Mort amoureuse
La Mer promise
1979 Les Fleurs fanées
1980 L’Âge bête
1981 Clipperton: The Island Time Forgot (documentary;
France / USA / West Germany)
Sans Famille / USA: An Orphan’s Tale (5
53')
1982 Commissaire Moulin (episode “Une Promenade
en Forêt”)
1983 Disparu le 7 Octobre
1984 La Terre et le Moulin (3 52')
1985 Série Noire (episodes “Pitié pour les Rats,”
also co-screenwriter, co-adapter, “Le Grand
Môme”)
1989 Haute Tension (episode “Retour à Malaveil”)
Le Prix du Silence
Maria Vandamme (4 90'; also co-composer)
1992 Soleil d’Automne (also co-dialogist, cocomposer;
France / Canada / Switzerland)
1993 Catherine Courage
L’Instit’ (episode “Concerto pour Guillaume”)
1994 Le Milliardaire
Un Jour avant l’Aube
1995 Navarro (episodes “Meurtre d’un Salaud,”
“Sanglante Nostalgie”)
1996 Les Allumettes suédoises (3 103')
ESCRIVA, AMALIA (August 28, 1961, Landerneau,
Finistère, France–)
She spent the fi rst months of her life in Algeria,
where her family on his paternal side lived for fi ve
generations. Having graduated from the Fémis, she
directed several documentaries on the Algerian
French. She played in Les Semeurs de Peste (medium-length,
Christian Merlhiot) and Le Pont des Arts
(Eugène Green).
Filmography
1988 Immersion (documentary; short)