
In 1970, the Maeght gallery in Paris asked Michel Foucault to write a screenplay based on the 58 variations on Velazquez’s Las Meninas that Picasso had painted 13 years earlier. The entire series, which forms an inseparable body work, was donated to the Picasso Museum of Barcelona in honour of the painter’s friend and secretary, Jaime Sabartès. The film, planned as a commission for television, never came to fruition. However, Michel Foucault’s heirs later asked Alain Jaubert to make the film as Foucault had envisaged it. It was shot and edited over 2019 and 2020 using Foucault’s text, with magnificent narration by Fanny Ardant.
Also presented:
39th International Festival of Films on Art, Canada (2021)
39th International Festival of Films on Art, Canada (2021)
Director | Alain Jaubert |
Editing | François-Joseph Botbol |
Cinematography | Olivier Petitjean |
Music | Frédéric Fleischer |
Production

Alain Jaubert
Alain Jaubert was born in 1940 in Paris. He was a science journalist at La Recherche and Nouvel Observateur and then a classical music columnist at Libération. He is the author of several essays including Le commissariat aux archives (1986) and various translations: Allen Ginsberg (1973) and Edgar Allan Poe (1989). He has also published several novels: Val Paradis (2004), Une nuit à Pompéi (2008), Tableaux Noirs (2011), Au bord de la mer violette (2013), Sous les pavés (2018).
Alain Jaubert has directed numerous documentaries for the National Audiovisual Institute (Auschwitz, l’album, la mémoire, 1985), ARTE (Gustave Caillebotte ou les aventures du regard, 1994 ; Giacomo Casanova, 1998 ; Nietzsche, un voyage philosophique, 2001 ; Borges par Borges, 2006) and France 3 (Série « Un siècle d’écrivains » : Henri Michaux (1995).
From 1990 to 1993 he produced the magazine Les Arts and numerous television programs for Océaniques on France 3. Between 1989 and 2003, he directed a series of programs on art, Palettes: 50 films produced by Arte, awarded numerous international prizes, and broadcast worldwide.
Biographies have been provided by third parties.
Alain Jaubert has directed numerous documentaries for the National Audiovisual Institute (Auschwitz, l’album, la mémoire, 1985), ARTE (Gustave Caillebotte ou les aventures du regard, 1994 ; Giacomo Casanova, 1998 ; Nietzsche, un voyage philosophique, 2001 ; Borges par Borges, 2006) and France 3 (Série « Un siècle d’écrivains » : Henri Michaux (1995).
From 1990 to 1993 he produced the magazine Les Arts and numerous television programs for Océaniques on France 3. Between 1989 and 2003, he directed a series of programs on art, Palettes: 50 films produced by Arte, awarded numerous international prizes, and broadcast worldwide.
Biographies have been provided by third parties.
Borges par Borges (2006) ; Nietzsche, un voyage philosophique (2001) ; Giacomo Casanova (1998) ; Gustave Caillebotte ou les aventures du regard (1994) ; Auschwitz, l’album, la mémoire (1985).