46^th Deauville Festival Award

The Deauville Fes­ti­val Award is giv­en out each year to a film­mak­er who has crossed the Atlantic to direct a film in the Unit­ed States, thus renew­ing a French Amer­i­can bridge that goes back in a long artis­tic tra­di­tion. After Jacques Audi­ard (The Sis­ters Broth­ers) and Olivi­er Assayas (Wasp Net­work), for this 46^th edi­tion we will hon­or Bar­bet Schroed­er, not for one film, but for the ensem­ble of his Amer­i­can work. The mere men­tion of his name evokes icon­ic images of the New Wave and the young turks of the “Cahiers du Ciné­ma.” But of course, one also thinks of Les Films du Losange, the pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny he found­ed at bare­ly 20 to pro­duce the films of Eric Rohmer and which con­tin­ues to illu­mi­nate the land­scape for lovers of French cin­e­ma today.

A film­mak­er with­out borders
Born in Tehran to a Swiss father and a Ger­man moth­er, he spent his child­hood in Colom­bia and ado­les­cence in Paris. Hard­ly sur­pris­ing, giv­en the transat­lantic career of a film­mak­er with­out bor­ders whose first fea­ture film More (1969), filmed in Eng­lish in Ibiza, cap­tured the vibra­tions of an era and of youth in per­pet­u­al flux. A screen­writer, direc­tor, pro­duc­er, and actor, he has swung between eccen­tric and main­stream projects while criss­cross­ing the world, always keep­ing free­dom in his crosshairs.

Plung­ing into the real California
A fer­vent admir­er of Amer­i­can cin­e­ma, he left for the Unit­ed States in the mid-1970s, where he devel­oped his first nar­ra­tive project, which end­ed up tak­ing the form of a doc­u­men­tary, Koko: A Talk­ing Goril­la (1978), filmed on the Stan­ford cam­pus with a young Amer­i­can psy­chol­o­gist, Pen­ny Pat­ter­son, and a goril­la from the San Fran­cis­co Zoo. He fol­lowed this with a long doc­u­men­tary immersed in Charles Bukowski’s Los Ange­les: The Charles Bukows­ki Tapes (1982−1987). A leg­end of 20^th-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can let­ters, Bukows­ki would also inspire his film Barfly (1987) which immor­tal­ized Mick­ey Rourke and Faye Dun­away as a cou­ple in a city of (fall­en) angels.

Hol­ly­wood in the foot­steps of Hitch­cock and Lang
The inde­pen­dence and irrev­er­ence for which Bar­bet Schroed­er is known didn’t stop him from becom­ing a Hol­ly­wood film­mak­er and it was thrillers that would put him on the scene. With Rever­sal of For­tune (1990) — which afford­ed Jere­my Irons the Acad­e­my Award for Best Actor in a Lead­ing Role — then with Sin­gle White Female, pre­sent­ed at the Deauville Fes­ti­val in 1992, he brought a dark ambi­gu­i­ty to the genre that recalls Fritz Lang’s Amer­i­can film noirs. Nev­er one to shy away from a risk, a mas­ter of ambi­gu­i­ty, his body of work is a med­i­ta­tion on the com­plex­i­ty of evil. The film­mak­er is always where you least expect him, and after a dig­i­tal HD film on Pablo Escobar’s Colom­bia and the vio­lence of the car­tels, Our Lady of the Assas­sins (2000), he made anoth­er for­ay into Hol­ly­wood ter­ri­to­ry with his favorite genre, the detec­tive thriller. Mur­der by Num­bers, with San­dra Bul­lock and Ryan Gosling (2002), is a some­what Niet­zschean and indis­putably Hitch­cock­ian work. Always on the look­out for audio­vi­su­al exper­i­men­ta­tion and new forms of sto­ry­telling, he keeps a close eye on young Euro­pean tal­ents and in 2009 direct­ed an episode of the Amer­i­can series Mad Men, as a token of his eter­nal youth and insa­tiable curiosity.

Select­ed filmography

Direc­tor
2017 The Ven­er­a­ble W. – doc ***
2014 Amnesia ***
2009 Mad Men — TV
2008 Inju: The Beast in the Shadow ***
2007 L’Avocat de la ter­reur – doc
2002 Mur­der by Numbers *
2001 Our Lady of the Assassins *
1997 Des­per­ate Measures *
1995 Before and After *
1994 Kiss of Death *
1992 Sin­gle White Female *
1990 Rever­sal of Fortune
1987 Barfly *
1984 Tricheurs **/***
1982–1984 The Charles Bukows­ki Tapes – TV/doc *
1977 Koko: A Talk­ing Goril­la – doc
1975 Maîtresse ***
1974 Général Idi Amin Dada : Auto­por­trait – doc ***
1972 La Vallée */***
1969 More */***

Pro­duc­er
1988 Jesse Shat­tered Image Raoul Ruiz
1984 L’Avenir d’Émilie Flügel und Fes­seln Hel­ma Sanders-Brahms
1984 Mau­vaise con­duite Nés­tor Almen­dros & Orlan­do Jiménez Leal – doc
1981 The North Bridge Jacques Rivette
1978 Perce­val Éric Rohmer
1976 Chi­nese Roulette Rain­er Wern­er Fassbinder
1976 The Mar­quise of O … Éric Rohmer
1974 Celine and Julie Go Boat­ing Jacques Rivette **
1974 La Palo­ma – The Time for a Look Daniel Schmid **
1972 Six Moral Tales VI: Love in the After­noon Éric Rohmer
1970 Six Moral Tales V: Claire’s Knee Éric Rohmer
1969 Six Moral Tales III: My Night at Maud’s Éric Rohmer
1968 Imag­ine Robin­son Cru­soe Jean-Daniel Pollet
1967 Six Moral Tales IV: The Col­lec­tor Éric Rohmer
1965 Six in Paris Claude Chabrol, Jean Douchet, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Daniel Pol­let, Éric Rohmer & Jean Rouch **
1963 Moral Tales II: Suzanne’s Career Éric Rohmer

Comé­di­en Actor
2015 Rouge Antoine Barraud
2014 Por­trait of the Artist Antoine Barraud
2013 Par exem­ple, Elec­tre Jeanne Bal­ibar & Pierre Léon
2010 The Coun­sel Cédric Anger
2007 The Dar­jeel­ing Lim­it­ed Wes Anderson
2007 Don’t Touch the Axe Jacques Rivette
2006 Paris, I Love You Christo­pher Doyle
2005 Une aven­ture Xavier Giannoli
2004 Ne fais pas ça ! Luc Bondy
1996 Mars Attacks ! Tim Burton
1994 Bev­er­ly Hills Cop III John Landis
1994 La Reine Mar­got Patrice Chéreau
1990 The Gold­en Boat Raoul Ruiz
1984 L’Amour par terre Jacques Rivette
1979 Short Mem­o­ry Eduar­do de Gregorio
1979 Roberte Pierre Zucca
1972 Out 1 : Spec­tre Jacques Rivette
1971 Out 1, noli me tan­gere Jacques Riv­ette & Suzanne Schiffman
1965 Six in Paris Jean Rouch
1963 The Cara­bi­neers Jean-Luc Godard

* Also producer
** Also actor
** Also screenwriter