Claire Denis Biography

MARITAL STATUS
Professions Director , Screenwriter , 1st assistant director more
French nationality
Birth April 21, 1948 (Paris, Paris, France)

BIOGRAPHY
A few months after the birth of her daughter in Paris, Claire Denis’ mother returned to Cameroon, where her husband worked as a civil servant. After a childhood spent in Africa, the little girl, ill, was forced to return to France. A solitary and dreamy teenager, she locks herself in her room, in Marly-le-Roi, to read, listen to the music broadcast on British radios, and soon develops a taste for cinema. She married very early on to a photographer who suggested that she enroll at IDHEC, a school from which she graduated in 1972 after directing several science fiction short films.

Assistant to directors such asRivette- to whom she later devoted a documentary -,Rouffio,JarmuschandWenders, Claire Denis found inspiration for her first feature film in the desert landscapes of theParis, Texas shoot. A semi-autobiographical story of racial tension in colonial Africa in the 1950s,Chocolatwas presented at the Cannes Film Festival, nominated for a César and acclaimed by American critics. WithS’en fout la mort, immersed in the world of cockfights in the Parisian suburbs, thenI’m not asleep(1994), an evocation of the drift of serial killer Thierry Paulin, the filmmaker constructs a very personal universe, harsh and nocturnal.

Faithful to her actors, fromAlex DescastoBéatrice DalleviaVincent GalloandGrégoire Colin, the director won the Silver Lion in Venice in 1996 forNénette et Boni, an exploration of Marseille in the company of a pizza maker and his runaway sister. Declaring to Cahiers: “I recognize myself in a cinema that trusts plastic narration” , she then launched into singular projects, characterized by an attention paid to bodies and a refusal of explanatory dialogues:Trouble every day, vampire film sensual and wild, which shook the Croisette in 2000, andFriday evening, minimalist story of a romantic encounter, withValérie Lemercierin her first dramatic role.

We find this requirement in the two films in the form of a journey commissioned by Arte:Beau travail, portrait of the foreign legion in Djibouti, thenL’Intrus, wandering between north and south, inspired by a story by the philosopherJean-Luc Nancy. After devoting herself to two non-fiction projects (adocumentarydedicated to the choreographer Mathilde Monnier, an exhibition on the African diaspora), she launched into two very different feature films:35 Rhums, an evocation of a tender father/daughter relationship, which caused a sensation at the Venice Film Festival in 2008, andWhite Material, filmed in the Cameroon of his childhood with a new couple on screen:Isabelle HuppertandChristophe Lambert.

The year 2013 marks Claire Denis’ return to cinema and to the Cannes Film Festival. In the Un certain regard selection, she presents the very darkLes Salauds, in which she directsVincent Lindon(ten years laterFriday night) andChiara Mastroianni. Four years later, she hiredJuliette Binoche forA Beautiful Sun Interior. The story focuses on Isabelle, divorced, a child, looking for love. She calls on the actress again for her next two feature films: the science fiction filmHigh Life, with American superstarRobert Pattinson, then the dramaWith love and determination, with two other of her favorite actors, Vincent Lindon andGrégoire Colin.