Like many directors of the Nouvelle Vague, Olivier Assayas took his first steps in cinema by writing criticism and reviews. An editor for Métal Hurlant and later for the prestigious Cahiers du Cinéma and Rock et Folk, he stood out for his eclectic tastes, his passion for Asian cinema, and his admiration for French films of the 1950s and 1960s. At the end of the 1970s, he made his first short films, including Laissé inachevé à Tokyo (1982), which caught the attention of critics.
A regular guest at the Cannes, Venice, and Berlin film festivals, he has offered audiences numerous eclectic masterpieces, working with renowned actors such as Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Charles Berling, Nick Nolte, Béatrice Dalle, Jeanne Balibar, François Cluzet, Mathieu Amalric, and many others. His cinema, thoroughly contemporary, tackles pressing social issues: the passage from one age to another, the evolution of the world and of human relationships tested by new technologies, while at the same time opening up poetic and unexpected narrative possibilities.
How a leader is born. The protagonist of the film is the fictional character Vadim Baranov, an artist and producer entrusted with organizing the election campaign of the then-unknown Vladimir Putin, a young and ambitious face of post-Soviet Russia, now a his...
A film about cinema and the “behind the scenes” of a disastrous shoot, reflecting Assayas’s passion for mise en abyme.
A biopic acclaimed in France and abroad about Venezuelan terrorist Ilich Ramirez.
Presented at the Cannes Film Festival, it marked Assayas’s first collaboration with Kristen Stewart.
A psychological thriller about a young personal shopper in Paris, grappling with grief and strange phenomena. Winner of the Best Director Award (Prix de la Mise en Scène) at Cannes.
In Competition at the Venice Film Festival, a dialogue-rich film inspired by the cinema of Woody Allen and Éric Rohmer.
