Michel Fessler

Writer

† August 19, 2025

Lyon, France

Biography

No biography available.

Filmography

5.8

Visions

An experienced airline pilot, Estelle leads a perfect life between long-haul flights with her loving, protective husband Guillaume. One day, by chance, in an airport corridor, she crosses paths with Ana, a photographer with whom she had a passionate affair twenty years earlier. Little does Estelle know that this reunion will send her into a nightmarish spiral, turning her life upside down and irrational.

6.4

Bambi: A Tale of Life in the Woods

The life of Bambi, a male roe deer, from his birth through childhood, the loss of his mother, the finding of a mate, the lessons he learns from his father, and the experience he gains about the dangers posed by human hunters in the forest.

7.1

March of the Penguins

Every year, thousands of Antarctica's emperor penguins make an astonishing journey to breed their young. They walk, marching day and night in single file 70 miles into the darkest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. This amazing, true-life tale is touched with humour and alive with thrills. Breathtaking photography captures the transcendent beauty and staggering drama of devoted parent penguins who, in the fierce polar winter, take turns guarding their egg and trekking to the ocean in search of food. Predators hunt them, storms lash them. But the safety of their adorable chicks makes it all worthwhile. So follow the leader... to adventure!!

6.9

Little Nicholas: Happy as Can Be

Somewhere between Montmartre and Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Jean-Jacques Sempé and René Goscinny lean over a large white sheet of paper and bring to life a mischievous and endearing boy, Little Nicolas. From schoolyard games and fights to summer camp pranks and camaraderie, Nicolas lives a merry and enriching childhood – and brings friendship and newfound life to his creators, too.

6.3

Man to Man

An epic about anthropologists who hunt and capture pygmies for study back in Europe, in an attempt to illustrate the link between man and ape.

6.9

Ridicule

To get royal backing on a needed drainage project, a poor French lord must learn to play the delicate games of wit at court at Versailles.

5.7

Ao: The Last Hunter

When his clan, including his wife and baby girl Néa, are massacred, Ao, a desperate Neandertal man, decides to leave the North country where he has been living for the South where he was born. His aim is to join his twin brother, from whom he was separated when he was nine. On his long and adventurous way home, he meets Aki, a Homo Sapiens woman...

5.9

The Lady in the Portrait

An empress commissions a painting of herself from a French outsider in hopes of stirring her husband's interest in this lavish period piece. The Lady in the Portrait is a period yarn evoking the unique rapport between a French missionary and the Manchurian Empress whose portrait he's ordered to paint.

5.0

The Year of Awakening

A sensitive, 14 year old orphan in a military school learns about life and love from his classmates and teachers.

5.3

The Sea Wall

The film centers on a young French widow and her two adolescent children as they attempt to carve out a meager life for themselves by farming rice fields alongside the ocean in French Indo-China in the 1930s. Their efforts are hampered each year by the presence of the sea, which invariably floods the fields with saltwater and wipes out the crops. In desperation, the mother realizes that their only hope lies in the construction of a sea wall to prevent continued flooding, but the mother must cut a swath through the local bureaucracy in an almost Sisyphean attempt to make this happen. Meanwhile, her obstinate daughter, Suzanne, draws the romantic obsessions of a well-to-do Chinese gentleman, Monsieur Jo. Though he could easily provide a way out, the possibility of a romantic relationship between Jo and Suzanne could just as easily fall prey to local racial prejudices that would damage or ruin the lives of both.

7.5

Heart of an Oak

Once upon a time, there was a pedunculate oak (Quercus robur), born in 1810, 210 years old and a pillar in its kingdom. This spectacular adventure features an extraordinary cast: squirrels, barnacles, jays, ants, field mice... This vibrant, whirring, marvelous little world seals its destiny around the majestic tree that welcomes them, feeds them and protects them from its roots to its crown. A poetic ode to life, in which nature alone expresses itself.

6.0

Hanuman

Hanuman is the most lovable baby monkey one can imagine. He meets Tom who comes to visit the temple in the Valley of Monkeys and tries to protect it from the robbers. A warm relationship develops between the two.

5.4

Versailles: The Dream of a King

Docudrama about the life of Louis XIV nicknamed "the Sun King", the King of France who ran a glamorous court, expanded the borders of France, loved women and parties and built an incredible palace for himself - the Versailles.

3.6

Louis XV, le Soleil noir

How Louis XV, a young king loved by his people, sensitive to the artistic and intellectual turmoil of his century (that of the Enlightenment), will end his reign in decay and hatred? Only fifteen years after his death, it's the Revolution.

7.5

Land of the Bears

Set in the wilderness of the Kamchatka Peninsula, the land of legends and the kingdom of wild brown bears, we follow the daily adventures of five wild brown bears.

N/A

El Amanecer del Hombre

No description available

5.9

The Way to Happiness

Saul escaped the coming Shoah as a child by being sent from Vienna to Brussels by a Kindertransport. Now in 1986, he is on the road to resilience and owner of a Delicatessen dedicated to the "Septième Art" - the movies. With Joakin, his protégé, a young Chilean director, they decide to write the story of Saul's childhood and make it into a film. But love comes knocking at his door and confronts him with his past as a hidden child...

6.7

South of the Clouds

70-year-old mountain farmer Adrien from Valais suggests a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway to his friends. The taciturn mountain folk get on the train, but they never really let go. Nothing works without Jass cards and white wine. Only Adrien makes it as far as Beijing: For the stubborn farmer, the long journey ultimately becomes a journey to himself, to his own feelings.

7.5

Birth of Civilization

With the help of state of the art special effects, this National Geographic documentary attempts to recreate what civilization looked like during the first 8,000 years that human beings lived on Earth.

6.8

African Safari

A documentary that leads the audience from Namibia to Kilimanjaro to explore the African wildlife.