Arthur Higelin (born 27 March 1966), better known under his stage name Arthur H, is a French pianist, songwriter and singer. He is best known in France for his live performances—four of his albums were recorded live.
He is the son of the French singer Jacques Higelin and Nicole Courtois, and half brother of singers Izïa Higelin and stage and film actor, theatre director and music video director Kên Higelin.
After traveling in the West Indies, he studied music in Boston before returning to Paris and developing his eclectic but highly personal musical style, drawing on such influences as Thelonious Monk, Serge Gainsbourg, the Sex Pistols, jazz, blues, Middle Eastern music and the tango. He first performed in 1988 in clubs in Paris, as leader of a trio with bassist Brad Scott and drummer Paul Jothy.
His first album, Arthur H (1990), combined rhythmic experimentation and bal-musette elements with a vocal style which has been compared to Tom Waits. He toured widely around this time, particularly in France and Japan, adding a fourth band member, Jon Handelsman (saxophone), and produced a second album, Bachibouzouk (1992). In early 1993, he did a six-week season at the Magic Mirrors, an antique circus big top, which was later put on as a touring show and recorded on the live album En chair et en os.
Animation · Horror
Several scary black-and-white animated segments in different styles appeal to our fear(s) of the dark.
6.22007
Documentary
Explores the therapeutic work of director Alejandro Jodorowsky, showing by means of real acts, what Psychomagic is, its principle, how it is practiced, and how it is applied in life. Jodorowsky works directly with real, suffering people who are eager to solve their problems.
6.12019
Comedy
Fausto enters an orphanage and is initially bullied, but then makes friends with a new bunkmate, Raymond. He is apprenticed to Mietek, a tailor in the Jewish quarter, who teaches him the trade. Fausto charms everyone in the quarter, and falls in love with Tonie, the mechanic's daughter. He starts making outrageous suits for publicity and, after dressing Tonie, decides that he wants to be a famous couturier.
4.91993
Animation · Romance
Jack is born with his heart frozen solid on the coldest day in history. A wise midwife saves him by replacing it with a cuckoo clock. Now Jack must abide by three rules to keep his mechanical heart safe: never touch the clock's hands, master his anger, and never fall in love. He tries his best, but when he meets a girl named Acacia he falls in love, threatening the delicate balance of his artificial heart.
Animation · Horror
Several scary black-and-white animated segments in different styles appeal to our fear(s) of the dark.
6.22007
Documentary
Explores the therapeutic work of director Alejandro Jodorowsky, showing by means of real acts, what Psychomagic is, its principle, how it is practiced, and how it is applied in life. Jodorowsky works directly with real, suffering people who are eager to solve their problems.
6.12019
Comedy
Fausto enters an orphanage and is initially bullied, but then makes friends with a new bunkmate, Raymond. He is apprenticed to Mietek, a tailor in the Jewish quarter, who teaches him the trade. Fausto charms everyone in the quarter, and falls in love with Tonie, the mechanic's daughter. He starts making outrageous suits for publicity and, after dressing Tonie, decides that he wants to be a famous couturier.
4.91993
Animation · History
Exclusively created with period engravings, this animated feature explores the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the ensuing Paris Commune revolution in 1871.
7.12021
Drama · Comedy
Ange, a rootless musician, feels a vital need to reconnect and make peace with his old friend Marco. Solea, his past love’s daughter revolted against her era, joins him on this journey. Together, they rediscover the path to joy.
5.52025
Documentary
In the Espinhaço Mountains one winter, a group of small-town Brazilian girls are experiencing the end of their youth. Impossible romances leave marks on their bodies and the surrounding landscape. Each of the friends finds her own particular way to overcome the loneliness and to live within a tangle of uncertainty.
8.82009
Documentary · Music
Presents archival material as well as interviews with those who were close to Jacques Brel, who died way too young, at age 49. Jacques Brel sings "Madeleine" over the opening credits of this film and immediately the audience is drawn into the intense theatricality of his performance. Left without a choice, they follow his lead, join the chanson and are left sweaty and breathless, just like Brel. Philippe Kohly, a documentary filmmaker who is renowned for profiling artists, created a fascinating portrait of the legendary singer of Flemish descent who became a master of French chanson.
7.72017
Documentary
In the Espinhaço Mountains one winter, a group of small-town Brazilian girls are experiencing the end of their youth. Impossible romances leave marks on their bodies and the surrounding landscape. Each of the friends finds her own particular way to overcome the loneliness and to live within a tangle of uncertainty.
8.82009
Documentary · Music
Presents archival material as well as interviews with those who were close to Jacques Brel, who died way too young, at age 49. Jacques Brel sings "Madeleine" over the opening credits of this film and immediately the audience is drawn into the intense theatricality of his performance. Left without a choice, they follow his lead, join the chanson and are left sweaty and breathless, just like Brel. Philippe Kohly, a documentary filmmaker who is renowned for profiling artists, created a fascinating portrait of the legendary singer of Flemish descent who became a master of French chanson.
7.72017
Documentary
A small company valiantly struggles to survive under the respectful yet probing camera of Claire Simon in “At All Costs.” As the docu opens, founder and manager Jihad is off to see his banker. The lack of ready cash to pay his loyal employees, wholesale produce providers and a whole range of other creditors, including the tax-gobbling French government, is omnipresent. From a staff of 14, Jihad is down to three cooks, one delivery driver and a secretary in less than six months. The good-natured pluck of the remaining employees is at the heart of the film. Subterfuges for putting up a brave united front include scheduling food orders from a coin-operated pay phone when the office phone is cut off for nonpayment.
6.71995
Drama
Lulu is released from prison. Determined to fulfill her dream, find her kids, those of her best friend who remained locked up and go very far. The former inmate will do everything to carry out the "heist" that will get her the money.
6.01990
Documentary
He was ceaselessly in search of the human truth through the treatment of the light and the space and in the way he roams around things. His work full of boldness marks an essential stage in the history of paint.
5.32015
Documentary
A small company valiantly struggles to survive under the respectful yet probing camera of Claire Simon in “At All Costs.” As the docu opens, founder and manager Jihad is off to see his banker. The lack of ready cash to pay his loyal employees, wholesale produce providers and a whole range of other creditors, including the tax-gobbling French government, is omnipresent. From a staff of 14, Jihad is down to three cooks, one delivery driver and a secretary in less than six months. The good-natured pluck of the remaining employees is at the heart of the film. Subterfuges for putting up a brave united front include scheduling food orders from a coin-operated pay phone when the office phone is cut off for nonpayment.
6.71995
Adventure · Animation
Jeanne, 8 years old, is a little girl with a strong character. Her mother, on the other hand, is going through a depression; she decides to get some help and has to send her daughter to spend the Christmas holidays at her Granny Onion’s house. Jeanne leaves dragging her feet: in the country, there is nothing to do, and Granny’s house stinks of onions! Yet, against all expectations, the holidays turn out to be a real adventure.
7.52022
Animation
A young man opens the window of his attic room and discovers a lunar landscape which submerges him and threatens to imprison him in an eternal sheet of ice. He closes the window to escape this vision and hears from deep inside his soul the sound of a poem being sung.
7.02010
Drama
Alfred lives with his mother in a small village keeping chickens and selling eggs at the local market. He doesn't speak, except to his mother and to children. He has a girlfriend of sorts, although she shies away from any physical contact with her. But more than anything, Alfred wants a child. As natural fatherhood is out of the question he takes the next best option, and makes an application to adopt. With a very un-French lack of bureaucracy Alfred's adoptive son arrives, but turns out not to be the bouncing baby he was hoping for. [taken from London Film Festival 2006 catalogue]
10.02007
