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Mathieu Kassovitz
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Mathieu Kassovitz (born 3 August 1967 in Paris) is a French director, screenwriter, occasional actor and is considered one of contemporary France's top emerging film talents, best known for his searing Cannes-winning drama La Haine.
Contents
- 1 Biography
- 2 Personal
- 3 Trivia
- 4 Director filmography
- 4.1 Feature films
- 4.2 Short films
- 5 External links
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Biography
Kassovitz was born in Paris, the son of director Peter Kassovitz, a Jewish immigrant from Hungary, and a Roman Catholic French mother.
Filmmaker
As a filmmaker, Kassovitz has a number of artistic and commercial successes under his belt. He wrote and directed
La Haine (
1995, English translation:
Hate), a hugely successful and very controversial film in France dealing with race relations which won the
César Award for Best Film and netted Kassovitz the Best Director prize at the
Cannes Film Festival. When he was compared to
Spike Lee because the film was being compared to Lee's
Do the Right Thing, he noted the irony:
"I don't know if it's really important, or intelligent even, when people say to me I'm a white Spike Lee, because they said to Spike Lee you're a black Woody Allen." [1]
He later directed Les Rivières Pourpres (2000), a police detective thriller starring Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel, another massive commercial success in France, and Gothika (2003), a fantasy thriller (considered by some to be commercial failure, although it grossed over twice its roughly $40 million budget), with Halle Berry and Penélope Cruz that he did to earn the money he needed to develop a far more personal project Babylon Babies, the adaptation of one of Maurice Dantec's books.
Actor
Kassovitz is most famous outside France for his role as Nino Quincampoix in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film Amélie. Among many other credits, he also had small roles in La Haine (which he also directed), Birthday Girl, Café Au Lait and The Fifth Element. He also played one of the main roles in Amen (2003) by Costa-Gavras.
Kassovitz is also recognizable for playing a conflicted Belgian explosives expert in Steven Spielberg's controversial 2005 film Munich, alongside Eric Bana and Geoffrey Rush. He explained several times he accepted acting parts only for the experience of knowing what it is to act, to be able to be a better director of actors afterward, to meet directors he admires and learn from them by working with them, and to take part in great projects.
Personal
He is married to French ex-actress
Julie Mauduech, whom he directed and acted alongside with in his 1993 film
Métisse (
Café au lait, English title) and who made a short appearance in
La Haine (during the scene in the Parisian art gallery). They have a daughter, Carmen. Mauduech is now a costume designer for movies.
Trivia
- English rock band Assembly Now reference Kassovitz by name in their debut single "It's Magnetic."
- Was a jury member for the 2001 Cannes Festival.
Director filmography
Feature films
Short films
- 1998 - Article premier (Amnesty International)
- 1997 - La forêt (Handicap International)
- 1992 - Assassins
- 1991 - Cauchemar blanc
- 1990 - Fierrot le pou
