Lucile Hadžihalilović

Lucile Hadžihalilović
Born May 7, 1961
Lyon, France
Occupation Film director
Spouse(s) Gaspar Noé

Lucile Emina Hadžihalilović (born May 7, 1961 in Lyon) is a French writer and director. Her most notable works include not only the 1996 short film La Bouche de Jean-Pierre, but also the 2004 feature-length film Innocence, for which she became the first woman to win the Stockholm International Film Festival annual Bronze Horse top award for best film.[1]

Background

Hadžihalilović was born in Lyon in 1961 to Bosnian parents and grew up in Morocco until she was 17.[2] She studied art history[2] until she graduated from the prestigious French film school La Femis (previously Institut des hautes études cinématographiques) in 1987 with the short film La Premiere Mort de Nono.[3] In the early 1990s, she began to collaborate with the notable French filmmaker Gaspar Noé. She edited his short film Carne (1991) and its sequel, the feature length I Stand Alone (1998) and together they formed the production company Les Cinémas de la Zone[4] in 1991.[3] Noe explained their coming together as business partners: “we discovered that we shared a desire to make films atypical and we decided together to create our own society, Les Cinémas de la Zone, in order to finance our projects.”[5] Hadžihalilović’s first film since her graduation, La Bouche de Jean-Pierre (1996), was a result of this collaborative effort. Hadžihalilović wrote, edited, produced, and directed the film while Noé worked as the cinematographer. La Bouche de Jean-Pierre was shown during the Un Certain Regard panel at the Cannes Film Festival as well as being selected for various other notable festivals throughout the world.[3] Hadžihalilović also contributed to the screenplay of Noe’s critically acclaimed Enter the Void (2009).

Career

Editor

Hadžihalilović worked as an editor for a number of films before beginning her own projects. The first film she worked on was Sylvain Ledey’s short Festin (1986),[2] the plot of which is: “a man tortured by his stomach is having a weird nightmare.”[6] Following Festin, she edited Alain Bourges' 1991 documentary Horizons artificiels (Trois rêves d’architecture),[2] the plot of which is described as “three confrontations between the discourse on architecture and the architecture of speech.”[7] Soon after, Hadžihalilović had begun her collaboration with Gaspar Noé and worked on his 1994 short Carne, “after he thinks that his mute daughter is attacked, a butcher stabs and beats a man, which changes his whole life in a very short time.” [4] Also in 1994 Hadžihalilović worked on the short La Baigneuse by Joel Leberre,[2] the plot of which is: “the Bather, or how a summer incident becomes a drama when the meetings with human stupidity are linked.”[8] Hadžihalilović then both produced and edited Noe’s feature length sequel to Carne, I Stand Alone (1998).[2]

Director

Hadžihalilović’s first short feature after her graduating film was La Bouche de Jean-Pierre (1996). It is told through the eyes of a young girl, Mimi (Sandra Sammartino), whose mother had attempted suicide. Mimi is then relocated to live with her aunt (Denise Aron-Schropfer) and a man named Jean-Pierre (Michel Trillot). The film features child abuse and ends with Mimi taking sleeping pills in an effort to copy her mother.[3] Hadžihalilović then made a series of erotic short films in 1998 promoting condom use, Good Boys Use Condoms.[4] In 2004, Hadžihalilović released the critically acclaimed Innocence, a film staring Marion Cotillard and Hélène de Fougerolles. The film was inspired by the 1903 novella Mine-Haha, or On the Bodily Education of Young Girls by German playwright Frank Wedekind.[3] The film follows three young girls who attend a secluded mysterious boarding school and their interactions with their teachers (Cotillard and Fougerolles).[3] Many critics comment on the films formal similarity to that of Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Dario Argento's Susperia (1977) and The Sprit of the Beehive (1973) by Victor Erice.[9] In 2014 Hadžihalilović released a short entitled Nectar, which is about women who are preforming a ritual they know well.[4] 2015 brings a new feature film, Evolution.[10] The film revolves around young boys who are subjected to mysterious treatments and live on an island inhabited solely by women and themselves.[11]

Filmography

Editor
Actress
Director

Awards

Stockholm Film Festival – Bronze Horse – 2004 / Innocence

References

  1. ↑ "Director is first woman to win a Bronze Horse". deseretnews.com. Retrieved 2015-04-04.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 "Encyclopedia of French Film Directors". books.google.ca. Retrieved 2015-04-03.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 "Contemporary Feminine Cinema and Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Innocence". academia.edu. Retrieved 2015-04-03.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 "IMDb: Les Cinémas de la Zone". imdb.com. Retrieved 2015-04-04.
  5. ↑ "Le Tempts Detruit Tout: Pulpe Amère". letempsdetruittout.net. Retrieved 2015-04-04.
  6. ↑ "International Short Film Festival: Festin". clermont-filmfest.com. Retrieved 2015-04-04.
  7. ↑ "Film documentaire: Horizons artificiels". film-documentaire.fr. Retrieved 2015-04-04.
  8. ↑ "Short Film News: News du court métrage". ads.le.court.com. Retrieved 2015-04-04.
  9. ↑ "Artificial Eye: Lucile Hadžihalilović". artificial-eye.com. Retrieved 2015-04-04.
  10. ↑ "Cineuropa: Lucile Hadzihalilovic is back with Evolution". cineuropa.org. Retrieved 2015-04-04.
  11. ↑ "Wild Bunch: Evolution". wildbunch.biz. Retrieved 2015-04-04.

External links