The Jean-Luc Godard Foundation has ambitious goals: to list, preserve and share Godard’s archive. The French-Swiss film director died in 2022, leaving behind works scattered worldwide and the thorny matter of film rights. On the Rue des Petites Buttes in Rolle, western Switzerland, an ordinary door leads to an apartment. Although the door isn’t much to look at, it was immortalised in several films by the Jean-Luc Godard. It was, in fact, the entrance to his studio, an atelier that has been widely documented in films and photographs and reproduced in exhibitions. On January 16, the studio became home to the new Jean-Luc Godard Foundation. The Foundation’s goal is not “to create a mausoleum to pay homage to the butt of Jean-Luc Godard’s cigar”, says Frédéric Maire, a founding member who was close to the filmmaker. Instead, it aims to keep Godard’s work alive. Close friends and family, including former artistic collaborators and his nephew Paul Grivas, established the Foundation after ...
