Renowned French filmmaker Sébastien Lifshitz, acclaimed for impactful documentaries like Adolescentes and Little Girl, returns with a deeply moving new feature documentary: A Man of Good Family.

Airing on Arte on January 19 at 10:35 PM and available for streaming on arte.tv until August 16, this film presents an intimate and rare portrait of a man with a unique journey, marked by boldness, freedom, and self-discovery. This public broadcast is part of a broader movement to highlight LGBTQIA+ narratives on screen, fueled in part by the rise of LGBT streaming platforms, making these works accessible beyond traditional cinema circles.

📍 Portrait of an Extraordinary Life

The documentary follows the life of Claude Loir, now an octogenarian, a larger-than-life ordinary hero. Born into a modest family in the Pyrenees, he grew up surrounded by nature, which early on shaped his love for freedom and a desire to live unencumbered.

From his teenage years in Ariège to his first romantic experiences in 1950s France, the film traces his discovery of his homosexuality and his adventures leading him to Cannes and Paris, where he mingled in the capital’s less conventional and libertine circles.

🎞️ A Path Between Art and Transgression

In Paris, Claude Loir dreamed of becoming an actor and made a few appearances at the Comédie-Française, but he ultimately found his place in the 1970s pornographic cinema. Over seven intense years, he starred in over sixty adult films, both gay and straight, embodying sexual freedom in a France undergoing a cultural revolution.

Through archival photos, film excerpts, and on-camera interviews, Lifshitz empathetically and sensitively explores the life of this extraordinary figure, whose story reflects the social and cultural shifts of the latter half of the 20th century.

🧠 Revisiting Collective Memory

This documentary is not just the portrait of one man but also a subtle reevaluation of queer history and sexual liberation in France, a narrative often overlooked in mainstream stories.

Figures like Claude Loir, who fully embraced their sexuality before the AIDS era and the explosion of mainstream pornography, are highlighted with sensitivity here, illustrating how these individual journeys helped push societal norms forward.

🎬 A Man of Good Family once again confirms Sébastien Lifshitz’s unique perspective on marginalized lives, offering a work that is both intimate, historical, and profoundly human.

Through A Man of Good Family, Sébastien Lifshitz continues an essential endeavor: bringing to life queer trajectories, far from clichés and sanitized narratives. This film demonstrates how documentaries can serve as tools for transmission, memory, and symbolic healing. For those eager to delve deeper into these intimate, political, and moving stories, our selection of essential gay documentaries offers a panorama of significant works, each uniquely portraying the freedom to be oneself in a world still influenced by norms.