Life and career

Assayas was born in Paris, France, the son of French director/screenwriter Raymond Assayas, alias Jacques Rémy (1911-1981). His father was of Italian Jewish origin and his mother was of Protestant Hungarian origin. Assayas started his career in the industry by helping his father. He ghostwrote episodes for TV shows his father was working on when his health failed. In a 2010 interview, Assayas stated that his main political influences when growing up were Guy Debord and George Orwell. Speaking of the 1968 May uprising to overthrow General de Gaulle, Assayas in the same interview stated: "I was defined by the politics of May '68, but for me May '68 was an anti-totalitarian uprising. People seemed to forget that at the occupied Odéon theater, you had crossed flags-black and red, and I was on the side of the black element.".

He made his debut in 1986, after directing some short films and writing for the influential film magazine Cahiers du cinéma.

Assayas's film Cold Water was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.

His biggest hit to date has been Irma Vep, starring Hong Kong star Maggie Cheung, which manages to be a tribute both to French director Louis Feuillade and to Hong Kong cinema.

While working at Cahiers du cinéma, Assayas wrote lovingly about European film directors he admires but also about Asian directors. One of his films, HHH: A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-Hsien, is a documentary about Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien.

He married Hong Kong movie actress Maggie Cheung in 1998. They divorced in 2001, but their relationship remained amicable, and in 2004 Cheung made her award-winning film Clean with him.

He married actress-director Mia Hansen-Løve. They met when Hansen-Løve, seventeen at the time, starred in Assayas's 1998 feature Late August, Early September, but " didn't get together until was 20".

He directed and co-wrote the acclaimed 2010 French television miniseries Carlos, about the life of the terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez. Venezuelan actor Édgar Ramírez won the César Award for Most Promising Actor in 2011 for his performance as Carlos.

In April 2011, it was announced that he would be a member of the jury for the main competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

His 2012 film, Something in the Air, was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 69th Venice International Film Festival. Assayas won the Osella for Best Screenplay at Venice. His 2014 film Clouds of Sils Maria was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. Sils Maria won the Louis Delluc Prize and garnered six César Award nominations including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. The film won a César Award for Best Supporting Actress for American actress Kristen Stewart.

Style and influences

In an interview with Nick Pinkerton of Reverse Shot, Assayas talked about his influences:

"That radicality in cinema involved just being outside of the world of modern images, and the key to it was the work of Robert Bresson, who has been by far the most important influence in my work, and intellectually it's been the influence of Guy Debord—basically, you know, it's been Debord-Bresson, Bresson-Debord, the things that've always defined my framework, the way I look at the world."

Filmography

Year	Title	Credited as		Notes
		Director	Screenwriter
1978	Nuit féline		Yes	Short film
1979	Copyright	Yes		Short film
1980	Rectangle - Deux chansons de Jacno	Yes		Short film
1980	Scopitone	Yes	Yes	Short film
1982	Étoiles et toiles		Yes	TV series documentary
1982	Laissé inachevé à Tokyo	Yes	Yes	Short film
1984	Winston Tong en studio	Yes		Short documentary
1985	Rendez-vous		Yes
1985	Passage secret		Yes
1986	L'Unique		Yes
1986	Scene of the Crime		Yes
1986	Disorder	Yes	Yes
1987	Avril brisé		Yes
1989	Winter's Child	Yes	Yes
1990	Filha da Mãe		Yes
1991	Paris Awakens	Yes	Yes	Prix Jean Vigo
1993	A New Life	Yes	Yes
1994	Cold Water	Yes	Yes
1994	Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge...	Yes	Yes	TV series
1996	Irma Vep	Yes	Yes
1997	Cinéma, de notre temps	Yes	Yes	TV series documentary (Episode: HHH - Un portrait de Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
1998	Man Yuk: A Portrait of Maggie Cheung	Yes		Documentary short
1998	Late August, Early September	Yes	Yes
1998	Alice and Martin		Yes
2000	Sentimental Destinies	Yes	Yes	Nominated—Cannes Film Festival-Palme d'Or
2002	Demonlover	Yes	Yes	Nominated—Cannes Film Festival-Palme d'Or
2004	Clean	Yes	Yes	Nominated—Cannes Film Festival-Palme d'Or
2006	Paris, je t'aime	Yes	Yes	Segment: "Quartier des Enfants Rouges"
2006	Metric		Yes	Video documentary (idea)
2006	Noise	Yes		Documentary
2007	Boarding Gate	Yes	Yes
2007	To Each His Own Cinema	Yes	Yes	Segment: "Recrudescence"
2007	Stockhausen / Preljocaj Dialogue	Yes		TV Movie documentary
2008	Eldorado	Yes		TV Movie documentary
2008	Summer Hours	Yes	Yes	Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Language Film National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Language Film Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Language Film
2010	Carlos	Yes	Yes	Globes de Cristal Award for Best Television Film or Television Series Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Director Satellite Award for Best Miniseries Nominated—César Award for Best Director Nominated—European Film Award for Best Director Nominated—Lumières Award for Best Film Nominated—Lumières Award for Best Director Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special
2012	Something in the Air	Yes	Yes	Venice Film Festival-Golden Osella for Best Original Screenplay Venice Film Festival-Fondazione Mimmo Rotella Award Nominated—Venice Film Festival-Golden Lion
2014	Clouds of Sils Maria	Yes	Yes	Louis Delluc Prize Nominated—Cannes Film Festival - Palme d'Or Nominated—César Award for Best Film Nominated—César Award for Best Director Nominated—César Award for Best Original Screenplay
2016	Personal Shopper	Yes	Yes	Cannes Film Festival - Best Director

[ Source: Wikipedia ]