Spotlight: Forever by Karim Kari

Karim Kari – Director

Isabelle Bouché Kari – Writer

Karim Kari – Producer

Delphine Depardieu – Key Cast”Fantômes “

Michelle André – Key Cast

Salomé Villiers – Key Cast

Valentin De Carbonnieres – Key Cast

“The ghosts of theatre never truly leave the stage.”

In Forever, director Karim Kari delivers a haunting elegy to an art form slowly fading into the shadows.

After four decades behind the curtains of the Comédie des Champs-Élysées, Karim Kari has witnessed theatre’s quiet transformation—its seats growing emptier as cinema claimed the spotlight. Rather than protest, he creates a deeply poetic meditation on loss, memory, and devotion.

Forever follows the ghosts of the stage: passionate performers who continue to create despite disillusionment, carrying the fragile flame of an art that refuses to disappear. Their performances become acts of love, resilience, and remembrance.

Every frame unfolds like a living painting, where darkness, velvet, and silence intertwine to reveal the vulnerable soul beneath the actor’s mask. Set within the walls of a theatre itself, the film becomes a theatre inside a theatre—a dreamlike space where forgotten echoes continue to breathe.

Featuring remarkable performances from Delphine Depardieu, Michèle André, and an exceptional ensemble, Forever reminds us that even in decline, art remains a place where people gather, where stories endure, and where humanity finds itself.

Because some stages never truly go dark.

Forever.

After more than four decades behind the scenes of one of Paris’ most prestigious theatres, filmmaker Karim Kari has returned to his first artistic passion—cinema.

As the General Stage Manager at the Théâtre de la Comédie des Champs-Élysées, Karim has spent over 43 years immersed in the rhythm of live performance, mastering the language of silence, light, movement, and human emotion. That lifetime in theatre now shapes a filmmaking style that is intimate, instinctive, and profoundly authentic.

Working entirely independently, Karim writes, directs, produces, and edits his own films, often shooting with nothing more than a smartphone. His creative philosophy rejects technical excess in favour of emotional truth. Most scenes unfold in a single take, without rehearsals, allowing performers and unexpected moments to naturally become part of the story.

A defining force behind his work is his creative partnership with his wife, Isabelle Bouché Kari, whose poetry forms the emotional heartbeat of many of his films. Together, they create cinematic worlds where words and images merge into deeply moving visual poetry.

Karim also embraces collaboration in its purest form, bringing together professional actors, theatre technicians, administrative staff, amateur performers, and people from all walks of life. For him, every individual carries a unique story capable of enriching the screen.

His films are nomadic, poetic, and deeply human—embracing imperfection as an essential part of life itself. Blending memory, theatre, dreams, and reality, Karim’s cinema reminds us that powerful storytelling is born not from large budgets, but from honesty, instinct, and the courage to capture genuine moments.

Through every project, Karim Kari invites audiences into a cinematic experience where authenticity takes centre stage and poetry becomes film.