Claire Denis

Inspired by an essay by Roland Barthes, Claire Denis (“Beau Travail”) takes the romantic comedy apart. Juliette Binoche plays a divorced artist who wants love on her own terms, but the more time passes, the fewer men are left to choose from. — Isabelle, a painter in Paris, is divorced but still believes true love is out there. Every man she meets has something special about him, and not one of them is the man she’s looking for. Each time it’s hope, then waiting, then disappointment, and back to square one, but however many times it goes wrong, she refuses to give up. — SACD Prize- Directors' Fortnight | Cannes Film Festival | 2017

Claire Denis was forty-two when she made her debut, and she set it in the colonial Africa where she grew up as a civil servant’s daughter, with the last days of colonialism coming apart in memory. You can feel the heat in every frame. — It’s 1957 in Mindif, northern Cameroon. Little France, whose father is a French colonial administrator, spends her days with Protée, the family’s servant. Years later she returns to the house as a grown woman, and with her comes back everything that once lay between them. — Official Selection | Cannes Film Festival | 1988

With a score by Tindersticks and Béatrice Dalle as close to erupting as ever, Claire Denis turns a vampire story into a melancholy ballad about a hunger for human flesh. This ballad has teeth, though: at its Cannes premiere two people fainted and an ambulance had to be called. — Shane and June Brown have come to Paris for their honeymoon, though the beauty of the city is the last thing on Shane’s mind. What he’s really after is Léo, a neurobiologist he once worked with, and Léo’s wife Coré, who is kept locked in an upstairs room. Something is wrong with both Shane and Coré, and no one who gets close to them is safe.