Jean-François Balmer
Birthday: Born in 1946-04-18 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Deathday: Alive
TV Credits
Spender
Character: Inspector Calliere
Jimmy Nail plays tough cop Spender, forced to return to his native Newcastle after a failed undercover operation in London. He uses tough and unconventional methods to tackle the criminal underworld, but he must also deal with the friends, enemies and family he left behind, and never expected to return to. Sammy Johnson played Spender's sidekick Stick, while Denise Welch played Spender's wife....
L'Or du diable
Character: Abbot Bérenger Saunière, vicar of Rennes-le-Château
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Spécial cinéma
Character: Self
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Diane de Poitiers
Character: Mathieu Ory
It follows Diane de Poitiers, an emeritus huntress whose unalterable beauty fuels rumors and legends during her lifetime - and even in her death....
Beauregard
Character: Pierre Hautefort
The life of a small group of teenagers in a small 1961 French boarding school. In French Savoie, Pierre Hautefort, a literature teacher, is head of the Beauregard school, located in the mountains. However, the arrival of the young science teacher, Julien Ferrer, is going to seriously challenge the school’s strict and organized life....
Boulevard du Palais
Character: commandant Philippe Rovère
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Champs-Elysées
Character: Self
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Capitaine Marleau
Character: Jean Garcin
Beneath her eccentric appearance, Captain Marleau is a formidable detective. Her Sherlock Holmes deerstalker cap, her character, her unusual appearance, her humor, her unpredictable behavior--Captain Marleau is not your average gendarme. She never rushes an investigation; she becomes the investigation and relentlessly pursues the suspects....
Vivement dimanche
Character: Self
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Cellule de crise
Character: Adi Lipp
Newly elected president of one of the largest humanitarian organisations in the world, Suzanne Fontana is put to the test when a young delegate and a dozen employees of the organisation are kidnapped in Yemen....
Les Poneys sauvages
Character: Barry Roots
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Movie Credits
Madame Bovary
Character: Charles Bovary
Bored with the limited and tedious nature of provincial life in 19th-century France, the fierce and sensual Emma Bovary finds herself in calamitous debt and pursues scandalous sexual liaisons with absolute abandon. However, when her volatile lifestyle catches up to her, the lives of everyone around her are endangered....
The French Revolution: Years of Rage
Character: Louis XVI
Second part of the revolutionary historical drama, which takes up the events that occurred from August 10, 1792 until the end of the reign of terror with the execution of Robespierre....
The Blood of Others
Character: Arnaud
In the German-occupied Paris, Helene is torn between the love for her boyfriend Jean, working for the resistance and the German administrator Bergmann, who will do anything to gain her affection....
Strange Affair
Character: Paul Belais
A young Parisian advertising executive becomes so captivated by the unsettling charm of his mysterious new employer that he eventually abandons his family and friends, viewing it a privilege to let the ubiquitous employer take over his home, his life, his desire. Only his wife remains suspicious, recognizing both the pathos and the evil in the man’s soul-stealing power....
The Night Caller
Character: Julien Dallas, student
A serial-killer frightens Paris by phoning young ladies at night, telling them insults about their lives. Minos, as he calls himself, wants to prevent the world from free women and he targets at first these ones. Commissaire Letellier is given the investigation and he has hard work with the maniac....
Cop or Hood
Character: Inspector Georges Massard
When the local police inspector was found dead in a prostitute's house, police division commissioner Stan Borowitz is sent to investigate the situation. Posing as the prostitute's long-lost brother "Antonio Cerruti," he discovers a mare's nest of police corruption. In fact, in this comedy thriller the whole town is corrupt. If they were closely examined, Stan's methods for pursuing this investigation might embarrass the police. For instance, he drives into a criminal's house in a fancy, expensiv...
Love at the Top
Character: Vischenko
A shy bank employee unexpectedly invites a young woman to a café, leading to a one-night stand. When he shares this with his disillusioned friend, the writer helps him navigate a dazzling social ascent....
Mumu
Character: Monsieur le curé
The story a rescue, the rescue of a bad brat's life in the post-WWII period. In 1947, Roger reaches 11 years old. He's a kid badly loved, mischievous and specializes in silly things to do. He is sent to a small boarding school in a small village. Mumu reigns over here. She's not the bitchest school teacher of the area. Roger has already been expelled from several schools and this is his last chance to avoid the reformatory his father has been promising him for a long time. But this is will chang...
The Swindle
Character: Monsieur K
Betty and Victor are a pair of scam artists. One day Betty brings in Maurice, a treasurer of a multinational company. Maurice is due to transfer 5 millions francs out of Switzerland, and Betty is convinced he plans to steal that money....
The Castaways of Turtle Island
Character: Big Boss
Jean-Arthur has been working as a clerk in a travel agency. One day, he, along with his colleague comes to a brilliant idea: what if I offer tourists real extreme recreation? So the group of tourists land on a deserted island with no food, no shelter, nothing....
Beaumarchais the Scoundrel
Character: Sartine
Beaumarchais the Scoundrel is a biopic film based on the life of the French playwright, financier and spy Pierre Beaumarchais depicting his activities during the American War of Independence and his authorship of the Figaro trilogy of plays....
L'Infiltré
Character: Le directeur de la DST
A notorious French ex-felon becomes an informant and infiltrates a Mexican drug cartel....
T'aime
Character: Paul Gontier
Zef, twenty years old, is a simple-minded man who can only say one word: "love you". Always happy, loving everyone, he lives with his sister Sophie on a farm in the Lot. Attracted by the sad smile of Marie, he rapes her one evening without realizing the gravity of his act. Commited in a psychiatric asylum, Zef falls into a deep silence. Hugues, a doctor with avant-garde methods, is in charge of caring for Marie. He decides to confront her with Zef, convinced that her healing goes through a long ...
Ladies' Choice
Character: François-Albert
As a result of an automobile accident, a sophisticated TV producer meets her car mechanic/blue collar nemesis. They start a comic affair, but can they reconcile their totally different worlds?...
The African
Character: Paul Planchet
Charlotte flies to East Africa to build a tourist center near Lake Williams where the pygmies live. Here she meets her husband Victor, a devoted conservationist who left her three years ago to live in the jungle. Can you imagine his enthusiasm when she arrives at the conclusion that the ideal place to build this holiday resort is his kitchen garden?...
Diên Biên Phu
Character: AFP Employee
Vietnam, 1954. An American reporter finds himself in the middle of the battle of Điện Biên Phủ, between the French army and the Vietminh....
La Menace
Character: l'inspecteur Waldeck
Henri Savin has managed a trucking company for his lover, Dominique Montlaur, for many years. Now he is planning to leave her for Julie Manet, the woman he has made pregnant, and Dominique is hysterical. She first threatens suicide, then shows up at a meeting of Savin and Julie. Dominique tries everything she can think of to break Savin and Julie apart, to no avail. Frustrated in her efforts, she jumps off a cliff and dies. Savin insists that he and Julie lie to the police about the encounter, a...
The King's Daughters
Character: Racine
Late 17th Century: Anne de Grandcamp and Lucie de Fontenelle, two little girls from Normandy, arrive at the Saint-Cyr school founded by Madame de Maintenon for educating the daughters of impoverished nobles ruined in wars and making them into free women. Madame de Maintenon is the secret wife of Louis XIV, and empowered by his support, she offers "her" two hundred fifty girls a playful and avant-garde education. Anne and Lucie, two inseparable friends, allow themselves to be carried away by the...
La Dilettante
Character: Le président du tribunal
Pierrette is a woman who describes herself as having "opted for the temporary on a permanent basis." After 15 years of living the good life in Switzerland, Pierrette one day packs her bags full of fashionable outfits and returns to her native Paris with no idea of what she'll do. Pierette, however, leads a charmed life; while her son is forced to work the graveyard shift at a factory due to poor job prospects, she's able to find a job right away at a high school. Pierrette soon reintroduces hers...
A Winter in Paris
Character: Gaspacho
After being released from prison, a burglar is convinced by a former accomplice to participate in the theft of a precious jewel belonging to a rich heiress....
Charming Fellow
Character: Hector
Octave and his friends, Achille and Hector, wander around at night in the grocery stores, the regulars' restaurants and the creepy bars. Octave meets Esther by chance. These two people have diametrically opposed characters. She is beautiful, cultured, free, creative, while he is rude, violent and whiny. The latter falls in love with her. The game is going to be difficult....
In the House
Character: Le proviseur
A sixteen-year-old boy insinuates himself into the house of a fellow student from his literature class and writes about it in essays for his French teacher. Faced with this gifted and unusual pupil, the teacher rediscovers his enthusiasm for his work, but the boy’s intrusion will unleash a series of uncontrollable events....
Snow
Character: Second inspector
Anita is a barmaid at the center of a community of street preachers, prostitutes, dealers and users. When a beloved friend (and young drug dealer) is caught by narcotics agents, Anita takes it upon herself to score for his struggling clients....
East Wind
Character: Père Siegler
The true story of General Smyslovsky and the anti-Communist 1st Russian National Army receiving shelter in Liechtenstein in 1945 and successfully resisting Soviet pressure to be returned for execution in the USSR....
Le Chandelier
Character: Clavaroche
Jacqueline is married to Maître André, but is in love with her lover Clavaroche, a fiery officer stationed in the city. In order to avert Master André's suspicions about his wife's fidelity, Clavaroche suggests that Jacqueline take a "Chandelier"....
La Joie de vivre
Character: M. Chanteau
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Nothing to Report
Character: Raymond Dax
In 1956, the professional army of France lacks the manpower to keep the peace in Algeria, the colony which the country is determined to hold on to at any price. For this reason, reservists are called up and subject to an intense period of training before being sent to the front. Rémy March, Alain Charpentier and Raymond Dax are three such young men who have no interest in the military escapade and are reluctant conscripts. What they witness in Algeria will appall and transform them. Rape, tortur...
Juliette dans son bain
Character: Amato
Ronny Kandiotis, a billionaire and art lover, is the guest of a major museum, on the occasion of a donation to France of two paintings, one by Gauguin and the other by Munch. The same evening, his daughter Lara, is kidnapped by a mysterious organization, which demands as ransom the publication of texts casting opprobrium on this supposedly virtuous man, while the media is already actively seizing the case....
Polar
Character: Eugène Tarpon
This film noir tends to stay within very conventional plot lines, as the narration by the main protagonist, private detective Eugene Tarpon Jean-François Balmer, recites a dreary litany of how he wanted to chuck his profession until an attractive woman shows up asking him to investigate the murder of her roommate, a porno star. Soon Tarpon is up to his neck in trouble: the police, gangsters, and the victim's lover are all out to get him....
These Kids Are Grown-Ups
Character: Monestier
When a real-estate promoter attempts to take over the homes of two electronics whizzes and boot them out, they contrive ingenious ways to inconvenience and harass him. By pooling their knowledge, they are able to pull off a crucial robbery using a very special box of chocolates....
La Lumière des étoiles mortes
Character: Pierre
June 1940. The Wechrmacht appropriates the houses in which are living Pierre, his wife Magdeleine, their son Charles, their two servants Louise and Lea, and Mademoiselle, the beautiful jewish governess....
Crystal Book
Character: John Billeter, aka JB
This European thriller, set in Sri Lanka, attempts to expound upon the philosophical implications of life, death, and memory. JB, an academic famed for his studies of oriental culture and alcoholic who has never recovered from his wife's suicide, returns to Sri Lanka to translate a book written on glass. It is supposed to contain Buddha's discourse upon memory. While he is there, an attractive nurse, Julia asks him to assist a young boy who wants to locate his father who is now living in a Tamil...
Last Image
Character: Miller
Seen through the filtered lens of boyhood memories, award-winning director Mohamed Lakhdar-Hamina crafted this half-fictional, half-autobiographical account of a brief period in the history of an Algerian village. It is 1940, and the quiet town is ruled by French colonialists appointed by the Vichy government. Algerians are being called up for service in the Vichy military, and Jews in the village are in danger of deportation. A beautiful young schoolteacher named Claire Boyer (Veronique Jannot)...
Urgence
Character: Paul Murneau
When a neo-Nazi group of terrorists is set to blow a pop concert off the face of the earth because it is an anti-racist benefit, they are faced with the intrepid Jean-Pierre Mougin, a macho sports reporter with zero tolerance for Nazi hate crimes. Going along with Mougin to stop the bombing is Lyza, whose brother was killed by this group of fascists, and so she is ardently seeking revenge. After Mougin gets his hands on a videotape that reveals the plot to blow up the concert and its audience, h...
La Vallée delle ombre
Character: Don Rinaldo
Matteo, a boy from the city, goes to visit his grandfather in a secluded mountain village, where preparations for a local ancient festival are under way. Matteo spends the eve of the festival with Lidia and three other boys from the village. The group of kids begins a dangerous game, bringing up obscure mysteries that are rooted in the past of that mountain valley. Matteo thus goes through a sort of initiation, at the end of which he is able to exorcise his fears, but only after becoming uncomfo...
Mer de Chine: Le pays pour mémoire
Character: Marc
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Wild Animals
Character: Jeff Garcia
Berg and Bela are married stunt drivers, but one night Bela dies in an accident. Jaded and reclusive, Berg becomes a nighttime security guard where he befriends a young woman, Mimi, who works nights too. Soon a shadowy figure from Bela's past comes into Berg and Mimi's lives. Berg is forced to protect Mimi and seems responsible for a murder, but the man from Bela's past who caused her so much pain won't stop until he sees Berg suffer as much as Bela did....
Mise au Vert
Character: Léon
To strengthen family ties, to free his teenagers from their digital addiction, to reconnect with his roots in the region of his childhood; this is why Régis decides to take his wife and children on a surprise vacation in the Vercors. An old ruined house lost in the forest. No water, no electricity, even less network or wifi. Nothing is going to happen as planned...
Mort d'un président
Character: Georges Pompidou
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That Day
Character: Treffle
A father is scheming to have his slightly mental daughter from an earlier marriage killed by allowing a murderous psychopath to be released from the asylum and led to his house. However, the psychopath and the daughter fall for each other....
My New Partner III
Character: Albert
It's been ten years since the paths of René and François parted ways. From the glorious era when, as cops, they roamed the Montmartre district, they only have a handful of memories left, the money from their cronies having evaporated over time. Everything comes to an end. Until it starts again....
La vérité est un vilain défaut
Character: Bruckmann
The trials and tribulations of a good guy who feels obliged to confess the truth to his wife or his boss every time he makes a mistake....
The Worst Man in London
Character: Comte Henri de Pourtalès
In Victorian London lives a man of adventurous spirit and great wit, Charles Augustus Howell, art agent, art dealer, conspirator and master of blackmail....
Cosmos
Character: Leon
Two young men seek the solitude of the country; their peace is disturbed when a set of random occurrences suggest to their susceptible minds a pattern with sinister meanings....
Tokyo!
Character: Maître Voland (segment "Merde")
Three distinct tales unfold in the bustling city of Tokyo. Merde, a bizarre sewer-dweller, emerges from a manhole and begins terrorizing pedestrians. After his arrest, he stands trial and lashes out at a hostile courtroom. A man who has resigned himself to a life of solitude reconsiders after meeting a charming pizza delivery woman. And finally, a happy young couple find themselves undergoing a series of frightening metamorphoses....
The Sewers of Paradise
Character: 68
In July of 1976, the Societé Générale of France was robbed of well over $10 million dollars by a group burrowing through the sewers of Paris. This movie is based on a book by the thieves' mastermind, Albert Spaggiari. The famous theft won the nickname, "the great drain robbery," and this romanticized cinematic retelling of the true story stars Francis Huster as Spaggiari....
L'Amour ou presque
Character: Albert
Without warning, Mélie disembarks on the cargo ship where her father has the sailor's blues. He remembers his drifts and his friend Max who used to get him into some crazy situations. He remembers Alice and Luc whom he decided to avenge. He has his grenade ready. But Melie has just arrived....
The Mouth Agape
Character: (uncredited)
Monique is dying of cancer, lying in bed in the apartment above the store her family owns. Her philandering husband carries on with life, her son remains aloof, and her daughter-in-law wonders if she is witnessing her own decline. They all struggle to express, or feel, their love for one another....
My Chinese Sister
Character: Paul Bricou
In 1977, one year after Mao died, a French man ( played by Alain Bashung) comes back to China to work as a school teacher with his daughter. He quickly ignores the interdiction of getting in touch with Chinese people and finds himself drawn into mysterious meetings at the Red Pavilion. MY CHINESE SISTER is a movie about pretense and the mystification of reality....
Time Regained
Character: Uncle Adolphe
In early 1920s France, an author, lying on his deathbed, looks at various photographs and is flooded with memories of the people and events that have shaped his life....
Totally Nuts
Character:
Diane, a young woman in search of a child, is looking for money to go to the sperm bank. She crosses paths with Arthur, a bank robber....
Pierre et Jean
Character: Henri Rolland
In the 1930s, on the eve of the Popular Front, Pierre and Jean harmoniously combine their brotherhood. Pierre has just finished his medical studies, Jean his law studies. A rivalry is born between the brothers when Jean, the youngest, inherits the fortune of Dr. Maréchal, his godfather, who has just died in the colonies....
The Adolescent
Character: André, le menuisier
In the summer of 1939, 13-year-old Marie goes with her parents to visit her grandparents in a small town near Avignon. Marie discovers her femininity and falls for a young Jewish doctor, but he prefers Eva, Marie's mother....
Lucifer et moi
Character: Lucifer
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Dieumerci !
Character: Monsieur Ventura
A 44 year old guy gets out of jail and wants to become an actor....
Mountain Pass
Character:
Serge (Stevenin) is a dweller in the French provinces who happens upon Georges (Jacques Villeret), a Parisian motorist in distress. Serge arranges for the car to be taken to a nearby garage. Georges' friends, who were with him in the car, have continued their journeys. Because of that, Serge takes Georges under his wings while he waits for his car to be repaired, and they tour the countryside and party with the local revelers. Nothing much is said between them, but it is clear that they have bec...
Comedy of Power
Character: Boldi
Magistrate Jeanne Charmant-Killman doggedly investigates CEO Michel Humeau, who is accused of participating in massive corporate malfeasance. As her investigation leads her into the upper echelons of government, Jeanne becomes intoxicated by the power she is amassing....
Lucky Luke
Character: Le gouverneur
Fearless gunslinger, Lucky Luke, is ordered by the President to bring peace to Daisy Town....
It's Not Me
Character: (archive footage)
This free-form film is a self-portrait, which revisits more than 40 years of the author’s filmography and questions the major stations of his life, while capturing the political tremors of the time....
Le Transfuge
Character: Captain Pierre Clément
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En attendant Godot
Character: Estragon
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Little Marcel
Character: Pottier
A homeless young man, living in his delivery truck, is simultaneously adopted by a pranksome group of youngsters and made into a police informer. Believing that he is doing something good both for the other kids and for himself, he has no qualms....
The Sacha Guitry Affair
Character: Sacha Guitry
On the morning of 23 August 1944 Sacha Guitry was arrested at his Paris appartment, as the French capital was being liberated. Accused of collaboration with the enemy, the author of successful plays ("My Father was Right," "Let's Make a Dream," "Quadrille") and director of the theatre of the Madeleine was to remain captive for sixty days. His detention took from from the depot, to the Vel' d'hiv', then Drancy, and finally Fresnes Prison....
Spender : The French Collection
Character: Inspector Calliere
Spender Christmas Special: Spender is sent to France to escort Tommy Thornton who has been extradited to the UK....
An Unlikely Adventurer
Character: Reynaud
Carole is ready to do anything to save the Guyanese forest and the Wayanas Indians from the pollution of the Gerson laboratories! Fearless and determined, our adventuress will face the unscrupulous men sent by the laboratories to make her give in. In the jungle where she grew up, she is the strongest. But she is accompanied by Bruno, a clumsy young French policeman....
Murder on Omaha Beach
Character: Jacques Marechal
Captain Eloïse Gentil, of Caen police, hasn't been on speaking terms with her father Robert, an expert on WWII, for twenty years. But the two are brought together to investigate the death of James Crawley, a 91 year-old former GI, found tied to a pole and in his uniform, apparently executed "as an example"....
Une page d'amour
Character: L'abbé Jouve
In Passy, Paris, 1895. The young widow Hélène calls the doctor Henri Deberle during the night, when her daughter Jeanne suddenly gets breathless. Together they spend the night at the bedside, and it develops from a trusting encounter a love relationship. When the doctor Hélène one day confesses his love, the daughter comes from jealousy in another, life-threatening crisis. A film adaptation of the eponymous novel by Émile Zola, which addresses the social milieu of the bourgeois family in the "...
Swann in Love
Character: Dr. Cottard
In 19th-century Paris, Charles Swann risks his social standing in his obsessive pursuit of prostitute Odette. His overwhelming desire for her comes, in part, from Odette's complete disinterest in him. When he finally weds her, utterly compromising himself in high society, he finds to his horror that his love for her was a complete illusion. At the same time, the Baron de Charlus pursues his own ill-advised romance....
Waiting for Anya
Character: Narrator
During the harrows of WWII, Jo, a young shepherd along with the help of the widow Horcada, helps to smuggle Jewish children across the border from southern France into Spain....
Golden Eighties
Character: M. Jean
Three young women at a hair salon all like the son of the clothing store proprietors across the mall. Although Robby is selfish and shallow, he's appealing to Lili, the salon's manager, who's trendy and also the salon-owner's moll; to Mado, who's innocent and sweet; and to Pascale, who's intelligent but passive and downcast. Robby's dad tells him to grow up and see beyond the mercurial Lili, so he proposes suddenly to Mado. She's delighted, but the day before the wedding, Lili returns to give Ro...
Lou Didn’t Say No
Character: (voice)
Moments and aspects of the life of a contemporary married couple undergoing a metamorphosis....
Belphegor, Phantom of the Louvre
Character: Bertrand Faussier
A collection of artifacts from an archeological dig in Egypt are brought to the famous Louvre museum in Paris, and while experts are using a laser scanning device to determine the age of a sarcophagus, a ghostly spirit escapes and makes its way into the museum's electrical system....
Dead Europe
Character: Gerry
In Greece to scatter his father's ashes, Isaac hears of a curse that hangs over the head of his family. Dismissing the idea, his trip begins to unveil dark truths that forced his father to flee years ago....
Celles qui aimaient Richard Wagner
Character: Richard Wagner
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Sidecar
Character: Jean Denamur, le censeur
The gloomy life of a high school censor is turned upside down the day he meets an old classmate....
Sam's Enough
Character: Albert
After trying a job as a stripper in a Barcelona carnival, Eva (Aure Attika) is ready for something new, so she heads over to France and becomes the roommate of a gay American artist (Phillip Bartlett) and works as the housewife for two wealthy older homosexuals (Claude Chabrol and Jean-François Balmer. After she gets settled, she takes a job at a government office for a while but then decides to have a child, which her obliging roommate makes with her the old fashioned way. He then returns to hi...
The French Revolution: Years of Hope
Character: Louis XVI
First part that includes the beginnings of the French Revolution. The film begins by recounting the events that led to the convocation of the States General in 1789 and ends with the assault on the Tuileries Palace, which occurred on August 10, 1792....