Jacques Audiard

Few filmmakers can claim quite as convincingly as Jacques Audiard to have cinema in their blood. Born in Paris in 1952, Audiard is the son of renowned screenwriter Michel Audiard, who penned films like "He Died with His Eyes Open" (1985). However, despite his formative exposure to the film industry, Audiard at first intended to take a decidedly different career path than that of his father. He enrolled at the Sorbonne intending to become a teacher of literature and philosophy.

Before graduating, however, Audiard decided that education was not for him, and dropped out. He couldn't deny that the world of movies truly did attract him just the way it did his father. He was able to collaborate with the elder Audiard on a movie adaptation of the Alain Yves Beaujour novel Le principe d'Archimède entitled "Kisses Till Monday" (1974) and from then on, his path was set.

However, he wasn't about to rely on nepotism to boost his new career. Audiard joined a production crew and began working near the bottom rung of the production ladder as an assistant editor. One of the first films he worked on was Roman Polanski's "The Tenant" (1976). He would assist on more films, like crime thriller "Rene the Cane" (1977) and social drama "Judith Therpauve" (1978), before getting another chance to work with his father on two more film adaptations, for the thrillers "The Professional" (1981) and "Deadly Circuit" (1983).

By this time, Audiard's keen ability as a screenwriter was becoming apparent. He had a knack for creating distinct visceral and oftentimes dark worlds, and his strong sense of his characters could elevate a time-worn narrative into something startlingly new and fresh. By the mid-'80s, he was working with filmmakers like Josiane Balasko on the comedy "Sac de noeuds" (1985), and Jérôme Boivin on the awesomely bizarre comedy-horror "Baxter" (1989), becoming more and more ingrained in the French film industry. He even made a minor appearance as an actor in the horror movie "Baby Blood" (1990).

In 1994, Audiard finally made the next big leap in his career, getting the financing together to direct his first feature film, "See How They Fall" (1994), which he also wrote. The crime drama showed the world what Audiard was truly capable of as a vital creative force in French cinema. He would follow it up two years later with the period movie "A Self-Made Hero" (1996), which won the Best Screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Audiard continued an active career as a screenwriter, even for projects he wasn't directing, such as the script for the romantic comedy "Venus Beauty" (1999). Before long, however, he was back in the director's chair, writing and directing the drama "Read My Lips" (2001), about an unlikely romance between a deaf woman and an ex-convict.

Though he would wait an average of four years between projects, his next film, "The Beat My Heart Skipped" (2005) won a BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language, as did his next, "A Prophet" (2009), which also picked up the Cannes Grand Jury Prize. (The acclaimed film was also nominated for the Palme d'Or, as well as an Independent Spirit award.) He received similar recognition during awards season for his subsequent projects, "Rust and Bone" (2012), and the war drama "Dheepan" (2015), which also won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.