Claire Denis
| Claire Denis | |
|---|---|
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Denis at the 66th Venice International Film Festival
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| Born |
21 April 1946 Paris, France |
| Alma mater | IDHEC |
| Occupation | director, writer, professor |
Claire Denis (French: [dəni]; born 21 April 1946) is a French film director and writer. Her work has dealt with themes of colonial and post-colonial West Africa, as well as issues in modern France.
Denis was born in Paris, France to French natives, and raised in colonial French Africa: Burkina Faso, Somalia, Senegal and Cameroon, where her father was a civil servant. Her childhood spent living in West Africa with her parents and her younger sister would color her perspectives on certain political issues. It has been a strong influence on her films, which have dealt with themes of colonialism and post-colonialism in Africa. Her father moved with the family every two years because he wanted the children to learn about geography. Growing up in West Africa, Denis used to watch the old and damaged copies of war films sent from the United States. As an adolescent she loved to read. Completing the required material while in school, at night she would sneak her mother's detective stories to read. When Denis was 14 years old, she moved with her mother and sister to a Parisian suburb in France, a country that she hardly knew at all. Her parents wanted their children to finish their education in France.
Denis initially studied economics, but, she has said, "It was completely suicidal. Everything pissed me off." She studied at the IDHEC, the French film school, with the encouragement of her husband. He told her she needed to figure out what she wanted to do. She graduated from the IDHEC and, since 2002, has been a Professor of Film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.
Her debut feature film Chocolat (1988), a semi-autobiographical meditation on African colonialism, won her critical acclaim. It was selected for the Cannes Film Festival and was praised by critics and audiences alike as a remarkable first film. With films such as US Go Home (1994), Nénette et Boni (1996), Beau Travail (1999), set in Africa; Trouble Every Day (2001), and Vendredi soir (2002), she established a reputation as a filmmaker who "has been able to reconcile the lyricism of French cinema with the impulse to capture the often harsh face of contemporary France." She returned to Africa again with White Material (2009), set in an unidentified country during a time of civil war.
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