Jacquot de Nantes

The portrait of filmmaker Jacques Demy follows his formative years in 1940s Nantes, France.

Jacquot de Nantes is a 1991 French drama film directed by Agnes Varda. It was screened out of competition at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival.

The film is a portrait of the making of an artist; recreating the early life of Vardas husband, Jacques Demy, in Occupied France and his interest in the various crafts associated with film making, such as casting, set design, animation and lighting. The fictional sections set in wartime Nantes are matched with brief documentary interludes involving the dying Demy.

Jacquot Demy is a little boy at the end of the thirties. His father owns a garage and his mother is a hairdresser. The whole family lives happily and likes to sing and to go to the movies. Jacquot is fascinated by every kind of show (theatre, cinema, puppets). He buys a camera to shoot his first amateur film... An evocation of French cineast Jacques Demy's childhood and vocation for the cinema and the musicals.