ALBERT DUPONTEL

When Albert Dupontel appeared on club and theatre stages in the early 1990s to the hilarity of his electrified audiences, he knew straight away that he would be one of the most exacting and atypical directors of French cinema. In the image of Rambo, his first stage success, Albert Dupontel is himself the relentless warrior.

Having always been a cinema-lover, he secretly quit his medical degree to make his début. He took on a string of unforgettable roles both as actor (“Sachs’ Disease” “Irréversible”, “Le Convoyeur”, Love Me No More, The Clink of the Ice, The Prey, “Le Grand soir”) and director (Bernie, The Creator, Locked Out, The Villain). Film-making is more than a craft for Albert Dupontel: it is something organic… vital… oxygen. Everything about him lives and breathes cinema. To assert his passion, ideas and style, he makes films as a soldier goes into battle: with a combination of furious energy and chilling determination.

Following 9 Month Stretch (2013), which previewed as the closing film at War on Screen 2013, his last feature film “Au revoir là-haut”, an adaptation of Pierre Lemaitre’s prizewinning work set at the period leading up to and following the end of the First World War, will be the opening film this year.