Anne Fontaine (born Anne-Fontaine Sibertin-Blanc; 15 July 1959) is a Luxembourger
film director,
screenwriter, and former actress. She lives and works in France.
Life and career
Born Anne-Fontaine Sibertin-Blanc in Luxembourg, sister of actor Jean-Chrétien Sibertin-Blanc, she went as a young child to live in Lisbon, where her father, Antoine Sibertin-Blanc, is a music professor and cathedral organist. In adolescence she moved to Paris and trained in dance with Joseph Russillo while continuing her academic education, including philosophy. Her husband is Philippe Carcassonne, the film producer, and they have an adopted son, Tienne, who was born in Cambodia.
While still dancing, she was picked by Robert Hossein to play Esmeralda in a 1980 theatrical production of ''
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
''The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'' (french: Notre-Dame de Paris, translation=''Our Lady of Paris'', originally titled ''Notre-Dame de Paris. 1482'') is a French Gothic novel by Victor Hugo, published in 1831. It focuses on the unfortunate story ...
'' and around this time started to use the name Anne Fontaine. She continued with acting and became known for her roles in comedies like ''Si ma gueule vous plaît...'' (1981) and ''P.R.O.F.S.''(1985). An opportunity to be assistant director came with a 1986 stage version of
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches (27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961), better known by the pen name Louis-Ferdinand Céline ( , ) was a French novelist, polemicist and physician. His first novel ''Journey to the End of the Night'' (1932) won the '' Pr ...
's ''
Journey to the End of the Night'' at the Renaud-Barrault theatre.
Fontaine's first project as solo director, ''Les Histoires d'amour finissent mal... en général'' (''Love Affairs Usually End Badly''), won the 1993
Prix Jean Vigo. In 1995, she worked with her brother on the comedy ''
Augustin''. Two years later, she wrote and directed the successful ''
Dry Cleaning
Dry cleaning is any cleaning process for clothing and textiles using a solvent other than water.
Dry cleaning still involves liquid, but clothes are instead soaked in a water-free liquid solvent. Tetrachloroethylene (perchloroethylene), known i ...
'' (''Nettoyage à Sec''). It won the Best Screenplay award at the
1997 Venice Film Festival and is generally considered a milestone on Fontaine's way to becoming "an important figure in contemporary French cinema".
In 1999 the character Augustin (Jean-Chrétien Sibertin-Blanc) re-appeared in Fontaine's film ''
Augustin, King of Kung-Fu
''Augustin, King of Kung-Fu'' (french: Augustin, roi du Kung-fu) is a 1999 film, directed by Anne Fontaine.
Cast and roles
* Jean-Chrétien Sibertin-Blanc as Augustin, an actor playing in minor roles. He is passionate about kung fu and has self- ...
''. ''
How I Killed My Father
''How I Killed My Father'' (french: Comment j'ai tué mon père) is a 2001 French thriller drama film directed by Anne Fontaine.
Plot
Jean-Luc, an established gerontologist, has not had any contact with his father, Maurice, for many years and th ...
'' was released in 2001, and ''
Nathalie...'' followed in 2003. The 2005 film, ''
Entre ses mains
''Entre ses mains'' is a 2005 French-Belgian drama film directed by Anne Fontaine. It is also known as ''In His Hands''. The screenplay was written by Fontaine and Julien Boivent.
Plot
Claire Gauthier works for an insurance company. Laurent Kessl ...
'' was widely described as a thriller: an "intimate thriller" according to Fontaine herself. A third Augustin film, ''
Nouvelle chance'' (also known as ''Oh La La'') was released in 2006. Then came ''
The Girl From Monaco'' in 2008 and ''
Coco Before Chanel'', her biopic of
Coco Chanel
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel ( , ; 19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with popularizing a sporty, c ...
, in 2009.
Fontaine's work is not easily categorised, though the phrase "psychological drama" is often used. She told a UK newspaper, "I try to work on my characters' blind side, in a kind of Freudian way: to ask, 'What are the things about themselves that they're unaware of?' I'm fascinated by the irony of fate, when something goes into a skid. All my stories have an element of cruelty in them."
While knowing that the movement of "women's cinema" worked as a counter to the classical Hollywood system, Fontaine didn't like to identify with this. During an interview in 1998 with Eve-Laure Moros, she stated: "If people say that 'Nettoyage a sec' is a woman's film, I'm very surprised, I don't know what that means... I think that to be a filmmaker, as far as sexuality, it's something that's really de-sexualizing. That is, you become a bizarre thing, when you're directing a film---during the shooting, you're neither a man nor a woman, you're really something strange and very ambivalent."
Filmography
As filmmaker
As actress
See also
*
List of female film and television directors
This is a list of female film and television directors. Their works may include live action and/or animated features, shorts, documentaries, telemovies, TV programs, or videos.
A
* Jennifer Abbott (Canada)
* Sarah Abbott (Canada
* Jenn ...
*
List of LGBT-related films directed by women
This is a list of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender-related films that were directed by women. LGBT-themed films directed by women – especially, but not exclusively, lesbian-themed movies – are an important and distinct subset of the gen ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fontaine, Anne
1959 births
Living people
French women film directors
20th-century French actresses
French women screenwriters
French film actresses
French television actresses
People from Luxembourg City
Luxembourgian screenwriters
Luxembourgian women screenwriters
20th-century French screenwriters
20th-century French women writers
20th-century Luxembourgian writers
20th-century Luxembourgian women writers
21st-century French screenwriters
21st-century French women writers
21st-century Luxembourgian writers
21st-century Luxembourgian women writers