Claire Denis

Claire Denis (; born 21 April 1946) is a French film director and screenwriter. Her feature film Beau Travail (1999) has been called one of the greatest films of the 1990s and of all time. Other acclaimed works include Trouble Every Day (2001), 35 Shots of Rum (2008), White Material (2009), High Life (2018) and Both Sides of the Blade (2022), the last of which won her the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival. For her film Stars at Noon (2022), Denis competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. She won the Grand Prix, sharing the award with Lukas Dhont's film Close. Her work has dealt with themes of colonial and post-colonial West Africa, as well as issues in modern France, and continues to influence European cinematic identity. Early life Denis was born in Paris, but raised in colonial French Africa, where her father was a civil servant, living in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, French Somaliland, and Senegal. Her childhood spent living in West Africa with her parents and her younger sister colored her perspective on certain political issues. Their father told them that independence from France would be a good thing for these colonies. Her upbringing was a strong influence on her films, which have dealt with 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 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. At age 12, Denis was diagnosed with polio and returned to France for treatment. She lived in Sceaux, a suburb of Paris, for the rest of her teenage years. During her time in France, she felt unfit for living in France. She was educated for a life in Africa, and felt completely different from everyone around her.