Arnaud Desplechin

Arnaud Desplechin began his career in 1991 with a medium-length film, La Vie Des Morts. His first feature, La Sentinelle (1992), was selected for the Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival. With Comment Je Me Suis Disputé… (Ma Vie Sexuelle) (1996), he introduced a whole new generation of talented actors. They won some of the highest honors in French cinema for his movies.

In 2008, Un conte de Noël competed at Cannes, starring Catherine Deneuve who received the festival’s special 61st Anniversary Prize for her career. Mathieu Amalric won the César for Best Actor for Rois et Reine (2004), and Roschdy Zem won the same award for Roubaix, une lumière (2019). Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse (2015) received 11 César nominations and earned him the César for Best Director. Les Fantômes d’Ismaël, starring Mathieu Amalric, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Marion Cotillard, opened the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. Frère et Soeur (2022), with Marion Cotillard and Melvil Poupaud, competed for the Palme d’Or and 6 other categories.

His essay film Spectateurs ! premiered at Cannes in 2024, and Deux pianos, starring François Civil, Nadia Tereszkiewicz and Charlotte Rampling, premiered at TIFF before competing at San Sebastián in 2025. He also directed seven episodes of the series En thérapie (Arte, 2022), as well as productions of Strindberg’s Père and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America at the Comédie-Française.