Director and screenwriter of specific style and one of the most important authors of contemporary French film. Although born in Paris, as a daughter of a public official, Denis has spent most of her child years and youth up to the age of fourteen in different countries in Africa. After that, she returned to a French suburb with her mother and younger sister, and continued her education. However, the time spent in former French colonies left a clearly visible trace in her films. At first, she studied economics, but then realized it wasn\'t for her. Encouraged by her husband, she enrolled in the Paris film school IDHEC (L\'Institut des hautes études cinématographiques), today known as La Fémis. After graduation in 1971, her first experiences on film sets were working as an assistant to directors such as Dušan Makavejev (Sweet Movie, 1974), Robera Enrico (Le vieux fusil, 1975), Costa-Gavras (Hanna K., 1983), Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas, 1984; Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin), 1987), Jim Jarmusch (Down by Law, 1986) and many others. She made her debut as a screenwriter and director in 1988 with the film Chocolat. For her first film, inspired by her childhood in Africa, she received acclaim from critics and the audience, and the film was presented at the Cannes film festival. Her next film was a documentary Man No Run (1989) about the band Les Têtes Brulées from Cameroon and she made it during their first tour in France. Her next feature film No Fear, No Die (S\'en fout la mort, 1990) is a story about two men (one from Africa, and the other from the Caribbean) who are trying to survive on the edges of French society. In her short film Keep It for Yourself (1991) a small role was played by Vincent Gallo, with whom she will later work again. She participated in the omnibus Contre l\'oubli (1991), produced by Amnesty International, consisting of works of about thirty directors, in which each one advocates for a different political prisoner. After that she directed the sequel La robe à cerceau of the TV series Monologues (1993). Afterwards she made her third long feature film J\'ai pas sommeil (1994), which addresses the questions of immigrants and cultural, family and social problems in a multiethnic Parisian neighborhood. The film is also one of her numerous collaborations with the director of photography Agnès Godard. During her work process, Denis as an author pays more attention and spends more time on editing the material after the shooting, than to numerous repetitions of scenes during shooting on the set. Having frequently worked for television and taking part in the omnibuses, she made US Go Home as a part of Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge... (1994), the TV series in which nine directors interpreted the topic of adolescence. In Us Go Home she worked with Vincent Gallo again, but also cooperated with the young Grégoire Colin for the first time. He will have bigger roles in her films to follow. For yet another omnibus in eight sections, about the French harbor town, À propos de Nice, la suite (1995) she made the part Nice, Very Nice. With Grégoire Colin as the lead, she made a story of growing up Nénette and Boni (Nénette et Boni, 1996). The film turned out to be one of her most successful works, which won her the Golden Leopard prize at the Swiss international film festival in Locarno in 1996. Three years later, again with Grégoire Colin, she made a drama called Beau travail (1999). The film, which is a free interpretation of the novella “Billy Budd, Sailor” by Herman Melville, brought her international acclaim of the audience and critics alike. After that, she ventured into the horror Trouble Every Day (Trouble Every Day, 2001) again starring Vincent Gallo. The music was done by the English band Tindersticks (also for her previous film Nénette et Boni). In most of her films, Denis uses very little dialogue, thus focusing on the music. She returned to the drama genre with Vendredi soir (2002). In that film, as well as in others, she is more oriented towards the motivation of characters than to the plot itself or the actions connecting them. She often finds motivation in the works of philosopher Jean-Luca Nancy, to whom she devoted the part Vers Nancy from the omnibus Ten Minutes Older: The Cello (2002), by disclosing the problems of accepting foreigners, integration and assimilation. Her next long feature film The Intruder (L'intrus, 2004) is based on the novel by Jean-Luca Nancy. Next came the documentary Vers Mathilde (2005), shot on Super-8 and Super-16 film dealing with the work of Mathilde Monnier, one of the most important French contemporary choreographers. In the drama 35 Shots of Rum (35 rhums, 2008) she worked with Alex Descas, another of her frequent actors. Isabelle Huppert is the leading actress in the film White Material (White Material, 2009), in which Denis returned to her African themes and locations. After the short film To the Devil (2011) she made her currently last feature film Les salauds (2013). In addition to making films, since 2002 she has worked as a film professor at the European Graduate School (EGS) in Saas-Fee in Switzerland.


Claire Denis, the Vagabonde





Bastards

Towards Mathilde

Good Work

Against Oblivion

Chocolate

Friday Night

Towards Nancy

The Intruder

Trouble every day

35 Shots of Rum

Nénette and Boni

White material