Before he began his studies at L'Idhec in Paris in 1984, Jean-Pierre Améris already had made three short films in Lyon in the years from 1980 to 1983. He returned to Lyon in 1987 and made three more shorts including Interim which won the Grand Prix at the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival in 1988. He also won a special jury prize at the Festival de Villeurbanne in the same year. It was in 1992 that Jean-Pierre Améris directed his first feature, Le Bateau de mariage (shown that year in the French Film Festival), which told of a teacher's life in Occupied France. The film was selected in many international festivals and received the youth prize at the Tübingen Festival in Germany. Thereafter he switched back and forth between fiction and documentary, before he directed his second fiction feature, Les Aveux de l'innocent, which won several awards at the Cannes Film Festival including the Prix de la Semaine de la critique. In 1998, he won the best script award at the San Sebastian Film Festival for Mauvaises fréquentations before directing Sandrine Bonnaire and Jacques Dutronc in C'est la vie. In 2003, Améris adapted a novel by Olivier Adam, Poids léger, in which Nicolas Duvauchelle joins forces with Bernard Campan.

Filmography: Poids léger (2003);
C'est la vie (2001);
Mauvaises fréquentations (1998);
Les Aveux de l'innocent (1996);
Le Bateau de mariage (1993). [BACK]

Dominique Cabrera was born in Relizane, Algeria in 1957. She studied at the Parisian film school L’IDHEC, before directing her first documentary in 1981 called J’ai droit à la parole / I Have the Right to Speak which looked at how survivors came to grips with a transit camp in Colombia. She continued her work in documentaries with social edge
including, Chronique d’une banlieue ordinaire (1992), Une poste à la Courneuve (1994), and Rester là-bas” (1992) in which she looked at the links between France and Algeria and the uneasy relationship between the two countries. Following the documentaries Dominique Cabrera made three short fiction subjects, including Traverser le jardin (1993), before embarking on her first feature L’Autre côté de la mer (1997) which was shown at the French Film Festival UK. She said: "You do not progress from documentary to fiction, it's all cinema. You do not have an idea for fiction or documentary, it's just what format would work best." She proved the point by making Demain et encore demain, an autobiographical feature made in 1995 - and the documentary form seemed the natural format. Her third feature Nadia et les hippopotames, was presented in
Cannes in 1999 in the Un Certain Regard section. Starring Ariane Ascaride it took as its background the 1995 round of strikes in France.

Filmography: 2004 Folle embellie;
2001 Le Lait de la tendresse humaine;
1999 Nadia et les hippopotames;
1998 Demain et encore demain
1996 L' Autre Côté de la mer;
1993 Traverser le jardin;
1992 Chronique d'une banlieue ordinaire;
1992 Rester là-bas. [BACK]

The actor who plays Olivier in The Clan, has just started out on his career with this his first major role.

Filmography: Le Clan (2004) [BACK]

Born in 1972 in Lacenas Gael Morel left home to study cinema in Lyon when he was only 15. He found an influential force early in his development in director André Techiné. He wrote letters to the director expressing his admiration and Techiné remembered him when he came to cast Les Roseaux sauvages / Wild Reeds. Before then Morel had made
three short films L'accident (1991), A corps perdu (1992) and La vieà rebours (1993). Besides acting in 1993's Les Roseaux sauvages alongside Stéphane Rideau, he also played under Didier Haudepin's direction in Le plus bel âge in 1994 and with Laurent Bouhnik in Zonzon before working again with Techiné on Loin. He has made four features as a director: A toute vitesse (1996), Premières neiges (1999), Les chemins de l'Oued (2002), and Le Clan (2003). Gaël Morel was named best male newcomer in the Césars for his performance in Les roseaux sauvages and received the Grand Prix of the International Critics for his direction of Les
chemins de l'Oued.

Filmography: Le Clan (2003);
Les Chemins de l'Oued (2002);
Loin (2001);
Tu seras un homme (2000);
Zonzon (1998);
A toute vitesse (1996);
Cours-y vite (1996);
Le Plus Bel Age (1995);
Les Roseaux sauvages (1994);
La Vie a rebours (1994). [BACK]

Abdelatif Kechiche who was born in Tunisia, spent some time as an actor in both theatre and cinema, before he turned to directing. He began his acting career on the stage in a play by Garcia Lorca directed by Muriel Channey. In 1984 he took the main role in the film Le Thé à la menthe by Abdelkarim Bahloul which was his first cinematic experience. He kept
working in both films and theatre, including the main role in Bezness by Nouri Bouzid, for which he won the acting prize at the Festival du Film Francophone de Namur (1992) and an acting prize again at the Festival de Damas (1993). In 2000 Abdelatif Kechiche directed his first feature La Faute à Voltaire.

FILMOGRAPHY
(As an actor) Le Thé à la menthe;
Bezness (1992).
(As a director) L' Esquive (2002);
La Faute à Voltaire (2000). [BACK]

Originally from Marseille, Emmanuel Mouret directed his first short film when he was 19. He then moved to Paris where he made another short Promene-toi donc tout nu, which was inspired by Eric Rohmer and Sach Guitry. He gained further experience by working as an assistant director on advertising films, and took drama classes in his spare time. He embarked on a director's course at the Femis film school. Then he was ready to make his first feature in 2001, Liassons Lucie faire, a romantic comedy in which Marie Gillian played the main role. Venus and Fleur is his second feature which deals with the world of female adolescence with a lightness of touch.

FILMOGRAPHY:
(As an actor)
Laissons Lucie faire (1999);
Promene-toi donc tout nu! (1999).
(As a director)
Vénus et Fleur (2003);
Laissons Lucie faire (1999)
Il n'y a pas de mal (1997). [BACK]

Born and raised in Marseille, Jean-Marc Moutout is a big fan of Ken Loach's universe. He discovered the British director's films after he returned to France from studying at a film school in Belgium. He admits he started his cinematic career relatively late, having toyed with the notion of becoming an actor. Moutout, 37, plunged into the world of the work-place with his documentary, made in 2000, about the redundant workers from the shipyards in Le Havre. Before then he had gained something of a reputation with a short film, the semi-autobiographical Tout doit disparaître (about warrant sales) which won awards in Cannes, a César nomination and also a nomination in the British Academy Awards.
Another short, Electrons statiques (dealing with the numbing effect of life on the dole) also was selected for the Cannes Film Festival while in 2001 he made a TV film, Libre Circulation. Violence des échanges en milieu tempéré is his debut feature.

Filmography:
(as a director) 1991 En haut et en bas;
1996 Tout doit disparaître;
1998 Electrons statiques;
2000 Le Dernier Navire (documentary);
2002 Libre circulation (TV film);
2003 Violence des échanges en milieu tempéré.
(As a writer):
2002 Libre circulation;
2003 Violence des échanges en milieu tempéré. [BACK]

Jean Reno was born as Juan Moreno in Casablanca, Morocco, in 1948. After the family moved to France in the Sixties, he studied acting at the Cours René Simon in Paris, and graduated in 1970. He made his professional stage debut in 1974 in a Parisian production of Ecce Homo
and went on to spend the next couple of years honing his craft onstage. He made his screen acting debut in 1978 in L'Hypothese du tableau vole before making his first collaboration with director Luc Besson in Le Dernier Combat. A second outing with the director, Subway (1985), provided another brief part. His breakthrough role in terms of recognition internationally was in Besson's The Big Blue. As Enzo Molinari, a macho champion free diver who fights off competition from an old friend and rival (Jean-Marc Barr), he received critical praise.
He was on a roll, followed by La femme Nikita, also for Besson. Cast as the partner-in-crime to Annie Parillaud's title character, Reno portrayed a character that established the tone of his screen persona, the ability to be cool, calculating and amoral yet retaining the impression that a human being and not a devil incarnate lives behind
those brown eyes.He demonstrated a talent for comedy in Les visiteurs, one of the biggest box office hits of its year, 1993 although the American remake Just Visiting in which also he starred almost sank without trace. He broke through into the American market with a heralded performance as an illiterate mob executioner who finds his soul saving the life of a teen-age girl (Natalie Portman) being pursued by rogue DEA agents in The Professional (1994). The film also marked the English-language debut of screenwriter-director Luc Besson, with whom Reno has frequently collaborated. He subsequently was a con-man thorn to Kevin Kline in Lawrence Kasdan's French Kiss (1995) and played Krieger, one of the operatives chosen by Tom Cruise for Mission: Impossible (1996). More recently he has played in such thrillers as Ronin and The Crimson Rivers, playing a police detective on the trail of a serial killer.

Filmography:
Clair de Femme (1979);
The Final Combat (1983);
Subway (1985);
The Big Blue (1988);
Nikita (1990);
Les Visiteurs (1993);
Leon (1994);
French Kiss (1995);
Beyond the Clouds (1995);
Mission: Impossible (1996);
Roseanna's Grave (1997);
Godzilla (1998);
Ronin (1998);
The Crimson Rivers (2000);
L'Enquête corse(2004);
Crimson Rivers 2 (2004);
L'Empire des loups (2004);
Onimush (2004).

Reno currently is working with Roberto Benigni who has to the themes he successfully exploited in Life Is Beautiful by filming a comedy set in war-torn Iraq.
Benigni is directing and starring in La Tigre E La Neve (literally, The Tiger And The Snow), playing a poet who gets caught up in the outbreak of the war in March 2003. As well as Reno the film will also feature his usual romantic lead, Nicoletta Braschi. Reno has just completed work on The Pink Panther, MGM’s prequel to the Peter Sellers classic,
starring Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau. [BACK]