Jacques Kébadian

Jacques Kebadian was born in France in 1940 to Armenian parents who emigrated in the 1920s. In 1964, he graduated from IDHEC. From 1965 to 1969, he was Robert Bresson’s assistant for the films Au hasard Balthazar, Histoire de Mouchette, and Une femme douce. From his first feature film (Trotsky in 1967), he turned to documentary cinema. In the 1980s, he directed Arménie 1900. In 1982, he was one of the founders of the AAA (Armenian Audiovisual Association): Sans retour possible (1983) and Que sont mes camarades devenus (1984). The Five Sisters in 1985, Mémoire arménienne in 1993, and finally, Vingt ans après, in 2000; Dis-moi pourquoi tu danses in 2015 complete this return to the roots. But also to that of the dancers of the Royal Ballet of Cambodia, Apsaras (1986), or to that of undocumented African families (D’une brousse à l’autre), “Seeking the universal on Indian soil. The Indians, the Indians we all are, strangers in our own land”: the fragile Armada (2004).