Paula Delsol
Paula Delsol, or Paule Delsol, was born on October 6, 1923, in Montagnac, Hérault, France, died on June 12, 2015, at Sèvres (Hauts-de-Seine) and is buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery. She was a French feature film director, documentarian, screenwriter, novelist, and also made contributions to French television. Her contributions to the iconic French New Wave are only rarely acknowledged; alongside Agnès Varda, Delsol was one of only two women practitioners in the movement.
Also recorded as Paule Delsol
Paula Delsol
- Full name
- Paule Delsol.
- Born
- 1923 · Montagnac.
- Died
- 2015 · Sèvres.
- Nationality
- France
- Occupation
- writer · screenwriter · journalist · director
- Fields
- drama fiction · documentary film
- Languages
- French
In this article
Filmography
She was married to Jean Malige. In 1955, Paula Delsol published an autobiographical novel Adieu et merci, inspired by her youth in Haiphong. From 1958, she made short films with her husband Jean Malige, cameraman and chief operator. She shot her first feature film in 1962, La Dérive - which was not released in theaters until 1964. Due to its themes of female sexual freedom and the over 18 theatrical restriction on the film, it was not a financial success at its time of release. She left Montpellier for Paris in 1965. She released her second feature film Ben et Bénédict in 1977 (interpreted by Françoise Lebrun, André Dussollier and Daniel Duval). She then made short films for the FR3 channel, as well as a television film (Un homme comblé) in 1985. Her work is archived in the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC), the television and radio archives Inathèque and the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF), as well as the Cinémathèque Française. Female director Michka Gorki began shooting a documentary about Delsol in the late 1970s which remains unfinished. La Dérive is #25 on Richard Brody's "The Greatest Independent Films of the Twentieth Century" list in The New Yorker.
• 1994 Adieu et merci Tonkin (documentary; co-director with Bernard Malige)
• 1993 Augusta, Television
• 1985 Un Homme Comble, Director/Screenwriter, Television
• 1976 Ben et Bénédict, Director
• 1963 Une Fille a la Derive, Director
• 1962 La Dérive, Director
• 1959 Chaleurs D'Été, Screenplay/adaptation/dialogue
• 1955 Glamador, Assistant Director
Novels
• 1959 Pourquoi j'aime
• 1955 Adieu et merci
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.
Montagnac.
Birth place
Sèvres.
Death place
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Paula Delsol, revision 1335901216 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record.
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.Palmer, Tim. Drift: Paule Delsol inside and outside the French New Wave. Studies in French Cinema. 17. 2. 144–164. 2017. 10.1080/14715880.2016.1270546.
- 2.Rège, Philippe. Encyclopedia of French Film Directors, Volume 1. Scarecrow Press. 306. Dec 11, 2009. 978-0810861374.
- 3.Unifrance. The Drifting.
- 4.La Dérive (1964). French Films.
- 5.Ben et Bénédict. Unifrance.
- 6.BEN ET BENEDICT (1976). BFI.
- 7.Docwra, Katie. Lost and Found in Paris: researching the work of Paula Delsol. Academia.edu.
- 8.Brody, Richard. The Greatest Independent Films of the Twentieth Century. The New Yorker. April 28, 2023.
- 9.Paula Delsol. BFI.
Citations
References
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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 02 September 2026.
Elsewhere in Film memorabilia
35,651 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
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- Paula HerediaPerson
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