Jacques Audiard

Director Jacques Audiard began his film career as a writer, following in the footsteps of his father Michel, author of and contributor to over a hundred screenplays between 1949 and 1985 and director of ten films. Jacques Audiard's early film experience included working as an assistant ediror on Roman Polanski's The Tenant / Le locataire (1976) and co-sriting wotk with his father on films such as Bons baisers... à lundi / Kisses Till Monday (1974) and Le professionnel (1981).

Audiard's first film as director was the 1994 Regarde les hommes tomber / See How They Fall starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Mathieu Kassovitz and Bulle Ogier, which won three César Awards (the French equivalent to the Oscar) for Best First Work, Best Editing (Juliette Welfling ) and Most Promising Actor (Mathieu Kassovitz).

His next film, Un héros très discret / A Self-Made Hero (1996) also starred Kassovitz and Jean-Louis Trintignant and was the first of his films to be screened by the TFS. He followed this with Norme française (1998), Sur mes lèvres / Read My Lips (2001) and De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté / The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005, also screened by us), a remake of James Toback's 1978 cult film Fingers that met with widescread critical acclaim, not least for the powerful central performance by rising star Romain Duris.

Un prophète has proved to be Audiard's most acclaimed and successful film to date, winning an astonishing nine César Awards, namely Best Film, Best Director, Best Writing (Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Abdel Raouf Dafri and Nicolas Peufaillit), Best Actor (Tahar Rahim), Most Promising Actor (also Rahim), Best Supporting Actor (Niels Arestrup), Best Cinematography (Stéphane Fontaine), Best Editing (Juliette Welfling) and Best Production design (Michel Barthélémy). It also won a number of other awards at film festivals around the world, including the BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year, the Grand Prix du Jury at Cannes and Best Film at the 2009 London Film Festival.

View Trailer for the Un prophèt

Read the DVD Outsider review of De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté / The Beat That My Heart Skipped