THE FORBIDDEN FILES
“Documents interdits” is a collection of stories gathered over many months of research by Jean-Teddy Filippe: twelve films, mostly amateur, from all over the world and spread over half a century. All of them speak of extraordinary events and mysteries, “unexplained” as long as we believe in their authenticity.
- Le Naufragé (6’47) : A team of divers has a terrifying encounter at sea.
- Le Pique-nique (4’47) : A father films the childhood of his son who develops strange faculties.
- Les Fantômes (8’16) : Two men travel through the desert to the land of the Nameless.
- Les Plongeurs (4’07) : A castaway, only survivor of his ship, films his logbook on his lifeboat.
- La Sorcière (5’01) : One of a group of young Californians in the Rocky Mountains, filming themselves with a Super 8mm camera, suddenly disappears into the sky.
- Le Soldat (3’59) : In Takohamo, aliens contact humans for the first time.
- Le Fou du carrefour (8’25) : A TV reporter explores an old mansion after a mysterious phone call.
- L’Enfant (6’30) : During the Second World War, a soldier witnesses a strange scene on a beach.
- Les Crown filment les Young (9’43) : A man bequeaths his large home movie collection to the archives.
- L’Extra-terrestre (5’45) : Tibor Hagy claims he was abducted by aliens and filmed his trip around the moon.
- Le Cas Ferguson (12’57) : In 1934, in Marella, a house disappeared overnight. A woman is accused of being a witch and being responsible for it.
- La Sibérie (9’03) : In Siberia, bionic men with incredible strength are hidden by the Soviet government.
All these films have a supplement. The total duration of these supplements is 10’30.
Review :
A possessed man, ghosts, bionic men, an extraterrestrial… The surprising stories told in The Forbidden files are true because they were filmed.
“The images you are about to see will not show you anything, will not teach you anything and will not prove anything” warns a voice-over that comments on a rather complicated montage of images. We finally understand that the man filmed by surveillance cameras presented in one of these “forbidden files” is an extraterrestrial…
On several occasions, Arte has broadcast without commentary a series of films taken from Jean Teddy Filippe’s collection, a series of black and white documents and video cassettes shot by private individuals or by obscure secret societies. A few years after the first films were broadcast, the scoop was revealed. What some people had understood immediately became clear, it was a magnificent hoax. Perhaps for the last time, the director tries to lure the viewers. Presenter for a night, Jean-Claude Carrière reminds us at the end of the program that: “In the field of image, all our education is still to do.”
Beautifully put together, The Forbidden Files are a reminder of the famous film of the dissection of the Roswell extraterrestrial that Jacques Pradel presented to us with conviction as being an authentic forbidden document. Before its broadcast on TF1, in autumn 1995 in L’Odyssée de l’étrange, Michel Polac had organized an evening debate on Arte to announce the “event”. Jean Teddy Filippe showed a film of the same type: an autopsy of an extraterrestrial filmed in 1947 in the USSR
It goes without saying that these forbidden files must be included in the video library of all viewers who want to practice recognizing what is real and what is not when it comes to images.
All these documents, with the trembling image of amateur films, seem to have captured by chance a paranormal event or a passage to a parallel world.
Everything is done so that the spectator believes in the authenticity of these documents, even though they are entirely staged by Jean-Teddy Filippe.
You can rent and watch “The Forbidden Files” here : https://vimeo.com/ondemand/theforbiddenfiles
