Directing

Isidore Bethel

Isidore Bethel is an editor, director, and producer whom Filmmaker named one of the "25 New Faces of Independent Film" in 2020. His work uses filmmaking to make sense of overwhelming experiences and touches on recurrent themes of displacement, grief, therapy, aging, trauma, and sexuality. His first feature film as director, Liam, premiered at the Boston LGBT Film Festival in 2018 and received the Jury Prize in the Documentary section of the Paris LGBTQ+ Film Festival. His second film, Acts of Love, co-directed with French actor Francis Leplay, premiered at Hot Docs in 2021. The films he has edited and produced have screened at Cannes (Official and ACID sections), IDFA, Visions du Réel, Cinéma du Réel, True/False, and MoMA's Documentary Fortnight. In addition to working in the United States, Mexico, and France, he has also edited and produced films with filmmakers in Lebanon, the United Kingdom, Ethiopia, and Turkey. Critics have characterized his work as demonstrative of "admirable restraint," "Wiseman-esque," "tender," and "elegant."