Bernard Pivot was a French journalist, interviewer and host of cultural television programmes. In 1985, Pivot created the Championnats mondiaux d'orthographe (world spelling championships). He has been Chairman of the Académie Goncourt from 2014 to 2019.
Apostrophes was a live, weekly, literary, prime-time, talk show on French television created and hosted by Bernard Pivot. It ran for fifteen years (724 episodes) from January 10, 1975, to June 22, 1990, and was one of the most watched shows on French television (around 6 million regular viewers). It was broadcast on Friday nights on the channel France 2 (which was called "Antenne 2" from 1975 to 1992). The hourlong show was devoted to books, authors and literature. The format varied between one-on-one interviews with a single author and open discussions between four or five authors.
Release Date1975-01-10
DepartmentProduction
JobProducer
Charactersd Host
Episode Count724
Vote Count2
Jean-Marc is a man without qualities living in times that are out of joint. His wife and children ignore him; he's a mid-level government functionary in Montreal doing his job without care. He has an active imagination of sexual conquest, but his only real feelings come when he visits his aged mother, whose health is failing. When his wife leaves abruptly to work in Toronto, Jean-Marc sets out to reorder things with his daughters, his social life, and at work. In a world that at best is a farce, does he stand a chance?
Release Date2007-09-26
Charactersd Bernard Pivot
Vote Count69
Salomé Lerner just finished writing an autobiography. She goes to a TV show called "Apostrophes", hosted by French TV showman Bernard Pivot. Pivot then imagines a film that could be created from her gripping story. A film entirely made of music because after seeing the young pianist Erik Berchot, Salomé believes seeing her long lost brother, who was a musician as well. A brother she had lost along with her parents in 1943. However, the Lerners did in fact escape the gestapo and might have based themselves in Paris...
Release Date1985-03-27
Charactersd Bernard Pivot
Vote Count20
Fleeing fame, the writer Anatole Hirsch decides to publish his new book under the name of his cousin, Martin Bassane. This book wins the Prix Goncourt. A film inspired by the story of Romain Gary.
Release Date1990-08-22
Charactersd Bernard Pivot
Vote Count1
Théodore, a strange and shy parisian man, discovers a song with supernatural power. An old jazz classic from the 1920s which will be make instantaneously make two people love each other. He has to find this song to seduce Amandine, the love of his life. His investigation leads him to New York City, where he meets a community of young jazzmen.
Release Date2023-01-11
Charactersd Le bouquiniste
Vote Count1
A writer explains how he feels eaten by words.
Release Date2016-04-07
DepartmentWriting
JobBook
Charactersd The Writer
Release Date1983-12-26
Charactersd Teacher
Release Date1982-01-16
Charactersd Self
Episode Count3
Vote Count7
Release Date1998-09-20
Charactersd Self
Episode Count1
Vote Count7
Release Date1972-01-12
Charactersd Self
Episode Count2
Vote Count2
Release Date1987-09-02
Charactersd Self
Episode Count1
Vote Count3
Release Date2018-11-04
Charactersd Self
Episode Count1
Release Date2006-07-23
Charactersd Self
Episode Count1
Vote Count1
Release Date1987-08-31
Charactersd Self
Episode Count1
Vote Count7
Release Date2012-01-09
Charactersd Self
Episode Count2
Vote Count1
In May 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing became President of the Republic and wanted to bring about a new era of modernity. One of his first decisions was to break up the ORTF with the creation of three new television channels: TF1, Antenne 2 and FR3. Three new public channels but autonomous and competing. It is a race for the audience which is engaged then, and from now on the channels will make the war! This competition will give birth to a real golden age for television programs, with variety shows in the forefront. The stars of the song are going to invade the living rooms of the French for their biggest pleasure. This unedited documentary tells the story of the metamorphosis of this television of the early 1970s, between freedom of tone, scandals, political intrigues and programs that have become mythical.
Release Date2022-01-07
Charactersd Self (archive footage)
Vote Count4
May 10th, 1981. François Mitterrand is elected President of the Republic. The “soviet tanks” supposedly coming upon the Champs-Élysées dressed in red, feared by some, did not march. Serge Moati takes a personal look at this episode, focusing on the relationship the president had with television, that he witnessed and played a role in.
Release Date2021-05-11
Charactersd Self (archive footage)
Vote Count3
In the 70s, actress Delphine Seyrig and director Carole Roussopoulos, both militant feminists, were the pioneers of video activism in France. They documented the demonstrations of French feminists and used the new technologies to counter the poor representation of women in the public media.
Release Date2020-01-14
Charactersd Self (archive footage)
Vote Count13
55 years ago, on October 1 1968, the first brand advertising spot appeared on the French television screen. Over the next three decades, thousands of creative little films would seduce and build our collective memory. Kitschy or cult spots, humor, slogans, music, stars, gimmicks, grand spectacle or sex appeal: during its golden age, how did advertising convince? Thierry Ardisson has brought together almost 400 advertising clips to relive the era of the conquest of minds and wallets.
Release Date2023-06-02
Charactersd Self (archive footage)
Vote Count6
During the worst days of World War II, the British government asks the mathematician Alan Turing to unravel the mysteries of the German Enigma encryption machine, an impossible task to accomplish without the invaluable information that Hans-Thilo Schmidt, a disenchanted but greedy German citizen, had been handing over to the French secret services since 1931.
Release Date2016-03-27
Charactersd Self (archive footage)
Vote Count3
Hours and historical meetings, Pierre Assouline has composed an anthology of the best extracts presented in the form of a primer, which he had commented on by a surprised Bernard Pivot.
Release Date2015-11-06
Charactersd Self
Vote Count1
Five stories that tell how a handful of football stars took the risk of losing everything and put their fate in the balance to make a difference by becoming the symbol of a fight.
Release Date2012-07-14
Charactersd Self
Vote Count8
With more than 70 films and 160 million cumulative tickets in France, Jean-Paul Belmondo is one of the essential stars of French cinema.
Release Date2017-09-03
Charactersd Self (archive footage)
Vote Count10
The convoluted and moving story of Russian writer Vassili Grossman (1905-64) and his novel Life and Fate (1980), a literary masterpiece, a monumental and epic account of life under Stalin's regime of terror, a defiant cry that the KGB tried to suffocate.
Release Date2018-01-24
Charactersd Self - TV Host (archive footage)
Vote Count1
Release Date2017-07-25
Charactersd Self (archive footage)
Vote Count2
The year 1975 is declared “year of the woman”. On this occasion Bernard Pivot invited Françoise Giroud on television, then Secretary of State for Women. Faced with statements, a group of women filmmakers parody the issues in a provocative way.
Release Date1976-01-01
Charactersd Self (archive footage)
Vote Count8
Release Date1987-12-04
DepartmentCrew
JobPresenter
Episode Count2
Vote Count1
A priceless statuette "Dancing God" is transfered from Africa to France. Scoundrels of all stripes are dreaming of steeling it. The most clever of them are trying to replace the original with the copy. Chases, adventures, breathtaking stunts, shootouts - life is not worth a penny, when the priceless treasure is on stake.
Release Date1997-04-30
Vote Count8
Bois d'Enghien, engaged to a young girl from a good family, has to break up with Lucette Gautier, his mistress, a dilettante of salons. Not having been able to tell her of his break-up, he finds her at her fiancée's house, invited for the event. A Mexican general, jealous of his rivals, arrives and complicates the situation, as does a notary clerk, Bouzin, a singer in his spare time.
Release Date2005-06-28
Vote Count1
