1957-1993

Cyril Collard was a film maker, musician and writer. His first novel was Condamné amour (1987) followed by Les nuits fauves (1989) and L'ange sauvage, (1993) - all part of a thinly disguised autobiography. A collection of poems is also available L'animal, Paris: Flammarion, 1994.

Cyril Collard published Savage Nights, his autobiographical novel of a bisexual man's voracious appetite to live life to its fullest. Although Jean is HIV-positive, he refuses let the virus modify his lifestyle. He fails to tell the seventeen-year-old Laura, with whom he is having unprotected sex, that he is HIV-positive.

He later writes her, "Seeing one hand holding another caused me incredible pain; more than you can imagine. In a few seconds, it summed up everything you expect of me that I can't give you. . . . I've searched for that feeling for years, through hundreds of nights, with hundreds of bodies. I don't want you to go through that. I want you to find it: a hand holding yours."

And he later reflects, "Laura's gone. Tonight, Olivier will sleep next to me. Samy calls; tomorrow, it'll be him. I'm passive. Events follow one another. I submit to them."

Collard directed the film version of Les nuits fauves simplifying many of the novel's complexities, in which, after some deliberation, he played himself as Jean, with Romane Bohringer as Laura and Carlos Lopez as Samy. The film sparked a very public controversy since the "real" Laura had been infected with HIV whether by Collard or another remains unknown and had died of an AIDS-related illness...

Cyril Collard

"What happens when AIDS hits you?" Collard asks apropos of his HIV-positive diagnosis. "You feel fear, a profound fear. But at the same time a strange calm comes and takes you in hand. It turns fatality into destiny, in which you can dredge up - out of even the filthiest depths - insights into truth, love and lust to console you for your pain".

Cyril Collard died of AIDS just 72 hours before the film of his autobiographical novel in March 1993 won four Cesars, the French Oscars: Best Film, Best First Film, Best Film Editing, and Best Female Newcomer, Romane Bohringer. But Collard has left his powerful testament to hope in the face of despair ...

Savage Nights

I his review the famous James Berardinelli writes: "Passionate and unrelentingly grim in its portrayal of life on the edge of death, Savage Nights is a film that refuses to compromise. This may lead to an uncomfortable movie-going experience; this motion picture is neither traditionally entertaining nor escapist in nature. However, for those who want a grittier portrayal of the effects of AIDS than the one presented in Jonathan Demme's recent Philadelphia, Savage Nights offers the option. Few will leave this film unaffected - one way or another ..."

France 1992, 126 minutes, colour
French language with English subtitles
Director: Cyril Collard
Starring: Cyril Collard, Romana Bohringer, Carlos Lopez