René Féret

René Féret (26 May 1945 – 28 April 2015) was a French actor, screenwriter, film director and producer. His film Solemn Communion, was entered into the 1977 Cannes Film Festival. In The Man Who Wasn't There (L'Homme qui n'était pas là), his 1987 film adaption of Roderick MacLeish's novel, he played alongside Claude Jade in the leading role of Charles Elaine. Very much an independent creator, Féret made several films around an invented family living in northern France, the Gravets, but based on his own life experience. He often used members of his own family in his films. Féret also turned to marginalised individuals in trouble: a man sent to a psychiatric hospital in Histoire de Paul (1975), a hermaphrodite in Mystère Alexina, the elderly in Rue du Retrait (2000) and cancer sufferers in Comme une étoile dans la nuit (2009). Later in his career, he turned his attention to historical artistic figures with the films Nannerl, la sœur de Mozart (2010) and Anton Tchékhov 1890 (2015). His work was described as “subtle and possessing great sensibility”.