Biography

Was at high-school with Volker Schlöndorff.

Was an assistant to Jean-Pierre Melville.

Directed one Oscar-nominated performance: Dexter Gordon in 'Round Midnight (1986). Interestingly, Gordon was professionally a musician, not an actor.

Ciinephile, he writes a DVD blog on the SACD's site (Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques) . That French authors and composers' association was founded in 1777 by Beaumarchais.

Tribute in the Memory of Film section at the Flanders International Film Festival in Ghent, Belgium.

When I do a film, I like to not only be involved with the emotion, but also the context around the character. I want to show the environment and I want, sometimes, to deal with social and political issues because they are organic to the jobs of people.

I like characters who, because they really believe in their mission, become a pain in the arse for an institution. A teacher who really wants to teach and really wants to follow the implication of his work - how can you teach a kid who is starving? How? The people above him say that it's not his job and tell him to forget it. But can you forget it? Can you forget when you see a young kid scavenging in a dustbin? If you raise that question, then you become a problem.

Dealing with history teaches you to be analytical and teaches you to find out what's important. Not conventional history, but the history told by the new breed of historians that show that history is linked with fact, flesh, blood, passion. It's not just about remembering dates, but it's about making the history alive.

I've been lucky. Almost everything I've done I wanted to make passionately. It's not so much the case if you work in America.

I can't tell you how many films I've made; I don't count. As I've said they were mostly things I was passionate about. I try not to be too analytic about why I want to do something but one thing that seems consistent is that there's an intriguing element that starts it all and makes me want to learn something new.