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Prénoms

Given Names
Forum 2026
© Nurith Aviv
A film of rules whose narrative varies, multiplies and expands into a novel of nomadic world knowledge. Nurith Aviv visits her friends. She arrives with flowers in her hand, finds the appropriate framing and listens. She speaks for Agnès V., whose actual name was Arlette. All the others speak themselves and soon get talking, about nothing less than the story of their first names. Chowra, Gulya, Hind, etcetera, 13 in number, 13 miniatures from A for Agnès Varda to Z for Zeynep Jouvenaux. They are colleagues from the film industry (filmmakers like herself, or stagehands), psychoanalysts, literature professors, engineers. Every meaning produced here is somehow connected to their first names. How fascinatingly simple this film seems and yet what gifts one receives while listening. Like herself, Nurith’s friends regard their names as messages, as a point of connection to their family and cultural backgrounds and as a trace of the desires and yearnings of those who brought them into the world. In her cinematic oeuvre, Nurith Aviv taps into signs, letters, words, languages. She herself also speaks many, including that of the camera. What a gift – and piece of luck.

Trailer/Film Excerpt

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by Nurith Aviv (Director, Screenplay)
with Chowra Makaremi, Edouard Rosenblatt, Gulya Mirzoeva, Hind Meddeb, Judon Guy, Marc-Alain Ouaknin, Nathalie Bély, Rim Bouhedda, Sarah Lawan Gana, Tewfik Allal, Yue Zhuo, Zeynep Jouvenaux France 2026 French 82' Colour World premiere | Documentary form

With

  • Chowra Makaremi
  • Edouard Rosenblatt
  • Gulya Mirzoeva
  • Hind Meddeb
  • Judon Guy
  • Marc-Alain Ouaknin
  • Nathalie Bély
  • Rim Bouhedda
  • Sarah Lawan Gana
  • Tewfik Allal
  • Yue Zhuo
  • Zeynep Jouvenaux

Crew

Director Nurith Aviv
Screenplay Nurith Aviv
Cinematography Nurith Aviv
Editing Hippolyte Saura, Nurith Aviv
Producers Serge Lalou, Sophie Cabon

Produced by

Les Films d'Ici

Paris, France

Photos

Nurith Aviv

© Michal Heiman

Nurith Aviv has made around 20 documentaries. She is mainly interested in exploring questions of language. Retrospectives of her work have been held at Jeu de Paume, Centre Pompidou, Forum des Images, in New York and Geneva. She is the first woman cinematographer in France officially recognised by the CNC and her filmography as DOP includes films by Agnès Varda, Amos Gitaï, René Allio, and Jacques Doillon. She is the subject of Zoher Behrendt’s film Nurith Aviv, Woman with a Camera. Nurith Aviv: Filmer la parole (Éditions Exils, 2023) collects texts on her films by around 40 authors.

Filmography

1988 Kafr Qar’a, Israël; documentary 1992 La tribu européene (The European Tribe); documentary 1998 Makom Avoda (A Place, A Work); documentary 2000 Circoncision (Circumcision); documentary 2001 Allenby, Passage; short documentary 2002 Vaters Land (Loss); short documentary 2004 D’une langue à l’autre (From Language to Language); documentary · L’alphabet de Bruly Bouabré (The Alphabet of Bruly Bouabré); short documentary 2008 Langue sacrée, langue parlée (Sacred Language, Spoken Language); documentary 2011 Traduire (Translating); documentary 2013 Annonces (Announcements); documentary 2015 Poétique du cerveau (Poetics of the Brain); documentary 2017 Signer en langues (Signing in Languages); short documentary 2018 Signer (Signing); documentary 2020 Yiddish; documentary 2022 Des mots qui restent (Words That Remain); documentary 2024 Lettre errante (Wandering Letter); documentary 2025 Son portrait, mon portrait (Her Portrait, My Portrait); short documentary 2026 Prénoms (Given Names); documentary

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2026