Paul Vecchiali
Paul Vecchiali (28 April 1930 – 18 January 2023) was a French filmmaker and author.
Paul Vecchiali

André Cros · This photograph is part of the Fonds André Cros, preserved by the city archives of Toulouse and released under CC BY-SA 4.0 license by the deliberation n°27.3 of June 23rd, 2017 of the Town Council o · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Born
- 1930. · Ajaccio.
- Died
- 2023. · Gassin.
- Nationality
- France.
- Occupation
- film critic, screenwriter, actor, director, film producer and writer.
- Fields
- film direction, film screenwriting, film production and acting.
- Education
- École polytechnique.
- Honours
- Officer of Arts and Letters.
- Languages
- French.
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
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Documentary summary
Paul Vecchiali (28 April 1930 – 18 January 2023) was a French filmmaker and author.
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Note VALÉORINE
Paul Vecchiali (1930–2023) was an actor, director and film critic, among other activities, of French nationality. The actor was born in Ajaccio and died in Gassin.
Paul Vecchiali was educated at École polytechnique. Activity centred on acting, film direction and film production.
Languages used include French. Honours include Officer of Arts and Letters.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 26 September 2026
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- Identity
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Authority files
wikidata · Q3372362 · wikipedia · Paul Vecchiali
In this article
Biography
Biography
Vecchiali was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, and grew up in Toulon. His father was accused of collaborationism after the Second World War. After studying at the École Polytechnique, Vecchiali was called up for military service in Algeria in 1956, where he supervised construction projects. He returned to Polytechnique as an instructor in 1961 and became part of the Paris cinephile milieu around the Studio Parnasse, where he encountered filmmakers including Jean Eustache. That year he made his first feature, Les Petits Drames, starring Nicole Courcel and Michel Piccoli; the unfinished film is now considered lost. In 1976, Vecchiali established the production company Diagonale with Cécile Clairval. The company combined film production with a catering business whose income helped finance its films. It developed into a collective of filmmakers, actors and technicians who frequently worked on one another's productions, including Jean-Claude Biette, Jean-Claude Guiguet, Marie-Claude Treilhou and Gérard Frot-Coutaz. Vecchiali's cinema drew extensively on the French melodramas of the 1930s while combining melodrama with formal experimentation and autobiography. His films frequently addressed sexuality, homosexuality and social or political taboos, including the death penalty in La Machine, the legacy of wartime collaboration in At the Top of the Stairs, and the AIDS crisis in Encore. Encore was the first French film to depict the AIDS crisis, addressing it through the life of a gay man. Despite recurring difficulties in obtaining financing, Vecchiali continued making films into his eighties and nineties. From the mid-2000s onward, he increasingly worked independently from his home in Provence, making small-budget digital productions. Between 2015 and 2018 alone he completed five films, and his later work continued the combination of melodrama, formal experimentation and highly economical production methods that had characterized much of his career. Vecchiali died in Gassin, Var, on 18 January 2023, at the age of 92.
Selected filmography
Selected filmography
• Les Ruses du diable (1965) • L'Étrangleur (1972) • Femmes Femmes (1974) • Change pas de main (1975) • La Machine (1977) • Corps à cœur (1978) • That's Life (C'est la vie) (1980) • At the Top of the Stairs (1983) • Rosa la rose, fille publique (1985) • Encore / Once More (1988) • The Guys in the Cafe (1989) • Wonder Boy (1994) • Zone Franche (1996) • Love Reinvented (1997) • Tears of AIDS (1999) • A Vot' Bon Cœur (2004) • A Diagonal Portrait of Paul Vecchiali (2005) • Le Cancre (2016)
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
Explore 1978–2023
The full dated record · 4 entries
1978
Maladie ( Paul Vecchiali, 1978) ENG Subs (1978) is digitised and catalogued by Internet Archive.
1989
Paul Vecchiali ou L'amour du cinéma (1989) is digitised and catalogued by Open Library.
2018
Train De Vies ( Paul Vecchiali, 2018) ENG Subs (2018) is digitised and catalogued by Internet Archive.
2023
Paul Vecchiali died at Gassin.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Ajaccio.
Birth place
Gassin.
Death place
Primary material
Documents and archives
scholarly publication
- A escola francesa de som direto: Antoine Bonfanti e Paul Vecchiali, o caso Femmes, femmes (1974), Aniki : Revista Portuguesa da Imagem em Movimento, 2020
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 2020
- Paul Vecchiali, l’Encinéclopédie. Cinéastes « français » des années 1930 et leur œuvre, 1895, 2011
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 2011
reference work
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q3372362: Paul Vecchiali
Reputable secondary · Wikidata
- “Paul Vecchiali”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority file
References ==== External links
References ==== External links
• Video recording of a lecture by film critic Anton Mazurov at the Institut Francais 12 2023: "Paul Vecchiali - the heir to the era of Jean Renoir" (rus) *
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.French filmmaker Paul Vecchiali has died. Le Monde. 19 January 2023.
- 2.Narrow Margin presents: The Cinema of Diagonale. Institute of Contemporary Arts. 2026.
- 3.Le Théâtre des matières. La Cinémathèque française.
- 4.Paul Vecchiali (1930–2023). Cinémathèque québécoise. 2023.
- 5.Once More. Institute of Contemporary Arts.
- 6.Macheret, Mathieu. « Les Sept Déserteurs » et « Train de vies » : Paul Vecchiali, entre désir et deuils. Le Monde. 30 May 2018.
- 7.Avis de décès de Paul Vecchiali. Avis-de-deces.net.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 1
- Vesperales (2008)
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
scholarly publication
A escola francesa de som direto: Antoine Bonfanti e Paul Vecchiali, o caso Femmes, femmes (1974), Aniki : Revista Portuguesa da Imagem em Movimento, 2020Crossref registry
Verifiedscholarly publication
Paul Vecchiali, l’Encinéclopédie. Cinéastes « français » des années 1930 et leur œuvre, 1895, 2011Crossref registry
Verifiedauthority file
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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