{"id":36620,"date":"2026-03-22T10:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T10:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/36620\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T10:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T10:31:09","slug":"new-swiss-foundation-to-catalogue-jean-luc-godards-film-archive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/36620\/","title":{"rendered":"New Swiss foundation to catalogue Jean-Luc Godard\u2019s film archive"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Godard<\/p>\n

Jean-Luc Godard filmed the clashes in the Latin Quarter, Paris, in the midst of May 1968. <\/p>\n

Keystone <\/p>\n

The Jean-Luc Godard Foundation has ambitious goals: to list, preserve and share Godard\u2019s archive. The French-Swiss film director died in 2022, leaving behind works scattered worldwide and the thorny matter of film rights.\n<\/p>\n

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March 22, 2026 – 10:25\n<\/p>\n

On the Rue des Petites Buttes in Rolle, western Switzerland, an ordinary door leads to an apartment. Although the door isn\u2019t much to look at, it was immortalised in several films by the Jean-Luc Godard. It was, in fact, the entrance to his studio, an atelier that has been widely documented in films and photographs and reproduced in exhibitions. On January 16, the studio became home to the new Jean-Luc Godard FoundationExternal link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The final destination: Jean-Luc Godard\u2019s house in Rolle, Switzerland. <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Keystone \/ Laurent Gillieron <\/p>\n

The Foundation\u2019s goal is not \u201cto create a mausoleum to pay homage to the butt of Jean-Luc Godard\u2019s cigar\u201d, says Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Maire, a founding member who was close to the filmmaker. Instead, it aims to keep Godard\u2019s work alive. Close friends and family, including former artistic collaborators and his nephew Paul Grivas, established the Foundation after Godard\u2019s death to create a catalogue of his entire archive. This will not be easy as Godard had a habit of throwing everything out, and what remains of his work is widely dispersed among private and public collections.<\/p>\n

\"Mayor\"<\/p>\n

Frederic Maire, director of the Swiss Film Archive, poses for a photo after an interview in June 2025 in Lausanne. <\/p>\n

Martial Trezzini \/ Keystone <\/p>\n

Maire is familiar with the challenges of preservation and cataloguing, and his new work on Godard\u2019s oeuvre builds on his previous experience. He was formerly the artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, and from 2009 to 2025 he directed the Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que Suisse, Switzerland\u2019s national film archive. Godard knew the Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que well and attended screenings there. Maire worked regularly with Godard, as did his predecessor, Freddy Buache. The Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que holds a portion of Godard\u2019s archive.<\/p>\n

Distinguishing films from \u2018non-films\u2019<\/p>\n

Godard\u2019s body of work presents particular complications as it can be difficult to distinguish films from \u201cnon-films\u201d, finished works from rough sketches. His last films with various collaborators, including Fabrice Aragno and Jean-Paul Battaggia, who are also Foundation members, are a good example of this mix of rough cuts, experimental films and finished film projects.<\/p>\n

Some elements of Godard\u2019s archive have already been highlighted in a multimedia project called What We Leave Behind and in the March 2026 edition of the French film magazine Cahiers du Cin\u00e9ma. In order to catalogue Godard\u2019s complete works, the Foundation plans to launch an appeal for information about items in private collections, film archives and museums worldwide. The goal is simply to ensure their preservation and accessibility, not to own or store them.<\/p>\n

\"staff<\/p>\n

The collaborators who have become the custodians of memory: from left to right, Jean-Paul Battaggia, Paul Grivas, Fabrice Aragno, and JLG during the filming of \u201cFilm Socialisme\u201d, March 2009. <\/p>\n

Fondation JLG <\/p>\n

Short films by Godard, sometimes intended for television, still occasionally resurface. These shorts make it clear that in between his full-length film projects he never stopped working. Some of these more experimental films are unknown or unavailable to the public. The Foundation hopes that by tracking them down and restoring them, they will be accessible to everyone. One example is a short film that Godard made at Zoetrope Studios in Los Angeles with the help of Francis Ford Coppola on the set of Coppola\u2019s One from the Heart (1981). \u201cWe\u2019re convinced it was made on 35mm [film], but currently only a poor-quality video copy exists,\u201d Maire says.<\/p>\n

Gems waiting to be discovered?<\/p>\n

Godard\u2019s famous \u201cofficial\u201d films also present a number of problems \u2013 sometimes even the biggest problems of all \u2013 due to rights issues. For example, there is no high-quality digitally restored version of Nouvelle Vague (New Wave, 1990, starring Alain Delon). The Foundation aims to contact the rights holder and restore the film, and to do the same for others like it.<\/p>\n

\"What<\/p>\n

What do we mean by \u2018filmic object\u2019? Preparation notes for \u2018Passion\u2019, 1982. <\/p>\n

@ F. Braga, Courtesy Casa Do Cinema, Funda\u00e7\u00e3o Serralves, Porto <\/p>\n

Is it possible that Godard\u2019s existing filmography is missing some unreleased finished films? Grivas says the answer might depend on \u201cwhat we mean by \u2018film\u2019\u201d. He believes it is certainly possible that marvels could yet be discovered, such as different cuts or rough cuts of finished films. He suspects that an alternative version of JLG\/JLG (1995) probably exists.<\/p>\n

Upcoming projects and centenary of Godard\u2019s birth<\/p>\n

\"Jean-Luc<\/p>\n

Jean-Luc Godard in colour: Self-portrait taken on an iPhone (2020). <\/p>\n

Fondation JLG <\/p>\n

The Foundation\u2019s main goals are to create the catalogue, connect relevant organisations and become the primary resource for information about Godard\u2019s work. As a non-profit, it plans to fund its projects \u2013 including a more complete website, film-restoration work, and exhibitions \u2013 with public and private contributions. In the months preceding its launch, the Foundation was supported by the Jan Michalski Foundation.<\/p>\n

Although the Foundation is still defining the exact projects it will take on, Maire says one thing is clear: it wants to create \u201ca welcoming space\u201d instead of \u201cdoing Godard\u201d in melancholic imitation of his work. It hopes that access to the archive and the Foundation could encourage new creativity and even a form of legacy, although Maire hesitates to use this term. The Foundation also hopes to foster research, as the inventory will be a wonderful asset for anyone studying Godard\u2019s works. Maire and Grivas envision an online catalogue that is open to the public and offers videos of some of Godard\u2019s films.<\/p>\n

Several projects are already underway, including the publication of Godard\u2019s correspondence, which will no doubt be a gold mine of information for Godard enthusiasts worldwide. The Foundation has also contributed to an exhibition opening on March 28 at La Virreina Centre de la Imatge, a contemporary-art museum in Barcelona. In addition, it is already considering plans for the 2030 centenary of Godard\u2019s birth.<\/p>\n

\"Godard<\/p>\n

Jean-Luc Godard during the filming of \u201cPassion\u201d, with Hanna Schygulla (1982). <\/p>\n

Fondation JLG \/ Anne-Marie Mi\u00e9ville <\/p>\n

Grivas admits to feeling overwhelmed at times by the amount of work ahead. \u201cThere are 20 ideas a day,\u201d he says. He adds that Elias Sanbar, a longtime friend of Godard\u2019s and an enthusiastic Foundation member, has also admitted that he \u201chope[s] we will be up to the task\u201d. Grivas takes comfort from a Henry James quote that appeared in Godard\u2019s Film Socialisme (2010) as well as in his own Film Catastrophe (2018) about the making of Godard\u2019s film: \u201cWe work in the dark \u2013 we do what we can \u2013 we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edited by Samuel Jaberg. Adapted from French by K. Bidwell\/ts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jean-Luc Godard filmed the clashes in the Latin Quarter, Paris, in the midst of May 1968. Keystone The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[101,8679,98,1210,10638,7923,20384,1918,14436,460,334,41,17],"class_list":["post-36620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-article","tag-arts-general","tag-beat-culture","tag-beat-swiss-abroad","tag-beat-swiss-cinema","tag-cinema","tag-cultural-development","tag-culture","tag-monument-and-heritage-site","tag-multi","tag-production-type-adaptation","tag-swiss","tag-switzerland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116272371020666338","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}