French Film Stars

An online database of filmographies and bibliographical references for all major French film stars.

An invaluable research resource in an exciting area of French cultural studies, the site comprises profiles of nearly 200 Francophone film stars, film descriptions and a database of references of press, radio and television coverage of Francophone film celebrities between 1949 and the present day.filmstars

Publications selected for the database give a broad social and cultural perspective on film stars and the star concept. General mass-market titles like Paris-Match and Voici are complemented by titles conceived along the lines of gender, sexuality and age. Thus, included are magazines with a largely female readership like Cinémonde and Festival and the magazine Lui, directed primarily at men. Gai Pied, Lesbia and Masques give an insight into how film stars are perceived by gay men and lesbians and Salut les copains and Mademoiselle Age tendre present stars in the context of the emerging youth culture of the 1960s. Industry publications like Les Cahiers du cinéma and Première also figure on the database as do French, British and American newspapers and radio and television programmes dating back to the late 1950s.

Where possible, each reference is illustrated with a quote from the text of the press article or television/radio interview and, in many cases, is complemented by a detailed summary of the content of the article or broadcast. The site is continually being updated and improved upon with a long term aim of broadening the scope of the database to encompass publications from Francophone countries other than France and publications which address stardom from a specifically beur or black perspective. At a later stage it is also intended to enlarge the database to include Francophone film stars from the pre-war era.

Website

  • No longer available

Duration: 30th October 2000 – 29th October 2001

Project Team

  • Dr Guy Austin (Director – Department of French, University of Sheffield)
  • Dr Wendy Michallat (Research Associate – Department of French, University of Sheffield)
  • Nigel Williamson (Developer – Humanities Research Institute, Univ. of Sheffield)