Françoise Lebrun Biography

MARITAL STATUS
Professions Actress , Director , Screenwriter more
French nationality
Birth August 18, 1944

BIOGRAPHY
Françoise Lebrun first plans to become a director. For this, she enrolled at Sciences Po and wrote freelance articles for the Image et Son and Communications magazines directed by the famous sociologist Roland Barthes . It was through this activity that she met, at the Evian festival in 1964, a certain Jean Eustache who came to present his short film Les Mauvaises frequentations . She became his companion and assistant until their separation in the early 1970s.

The director (who ended his life in 1981) offered her her first significant role in 1973 in The Mom and the Whore . In this drama, very well received by critics (it won the Special Jury Grand Prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival and is still considered a cult film today), she plays Veronika, the mistress of the hero Alexandre (Jean- Pierre Léaud ) whom he meets when approaching him in the street. Apparently discreet, in fact it hides a great freedom of morals…

Françoise Lebrun continues under the leadership of prestigious directors, such as André Téchiné ( Souvenirs d’en France ), Michèle Rosier ( My heart is red ), Charlotte Dubreuil (My darling) and especially Paul Vecchiali ( At the top of the stairs , Holes of memory , To your good heart , … And tremble to be happy ). At the same time, the actress has a career on the stage ( Le Défi by Jean-Claude Perrin, Remagen by Jacques Lassalle, La Fuite en Espagne by Bruno Bayen, etc.).

During the 1990s, Françoise Lebrun became more discreet even if she can be seen in the comedies Pullman paradis by Michèle Rosier, Pour Rire! by Lucas Belvaux or We have very few friends by Sylvain Monod. She is more active in the 2000s since she appears more or less furtively in films as different as Malraux, you surprise me! , Inguelezi , Fragments on grace , Once Upon a Time , The Diving Bell and the Butterfly , The Key , Séraphine , Tomorrow at Dawn and Something to Tell You .

Françoise Lebrun toured even more in the 2010s. After the TV film Comme une Mère , she reunited with Guillaume Nicloux after La Clé pourHoliday , The Gordji Affair, story of cohabitation , La Religieuse , The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq and Thalasso . She is also seen in (mainly on the drama side) Three Memories of My Youth , Fever , At 14 , The Dunce , My Life with James Dean , The Sower , L’Amour Debout and The Part of Suspicion . She is also present in the Mytho series .

In 2022, Françoise Lebrun plays the main character of Vortex by Gaspar Noé , that of a person at the end of life suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. It was because he was a fan of The Mom and the Whore that the director of Irreversible offered him the role: “He told me more or less the story, but I had a form of confidence in our relationship . I told myself that this man had seen what I was capable of doing and that he liked what was at the origin of my entire cinematographic history. So, I trusted him. ”

In 2013, Françoise Lebrun was made an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. Finally, note that we also owe him documentaries: Crazy Quilt (2011), devoted to the gardens of England, as well as The Man Who Mounted His Big Top and Romanes cirque tzigane , centered on the world of the circus.

Laurent Schenck