Partly based on a bleak six-month period of Goupil's life, back in 1996, when six close friends died in quick succession, A Mort La Mort - which translates roughly as Down With Death - is about a man whose life seems to revolve around hospital rooms and funerals. A former radical and, at 47, a veteran of the Parisian riots of May 1968, Thomas finds himself at the centre of a more personal struggle, seeing his friends dying of Aids, drug overdoses and suicide. Thomas, however, is not a man to let life get him down. A fast-talking womaniser who never looks back, Thomas lives life according to his own personal mantra, the quasi-Situationist rallying cry that give the film its name - A Mort La Mort!

The main inspiration came to Goupil during the Sarajevo war, where he was filming documentary footage of the area. He found himself fascinated by a flock of sparrows that seemed totally oblivious to the sniper fire around them - almost as if they'd simply chosen to ignore the chaos. "It occurred to me that the important thing in life is freedom of choice," Goupil recalls. "It's unbelievable to still be alive when war is so close to us. I turned it into a joyous, absurd fiction." Steve Grayson