Lucas Belvaux

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Lucas Belvaux, 2010

Lucas Belvaux (born November 14, 1961 in Namur ) is a Belgian actor, screenwriter and film director.

biography

Lucas Belvaux was born in Wallonia in 1961 , where he also grew up. He attended the boarding school in Philippeville , where his father was employed. Belvaux finished school at the age of 16 and, against his parents' wishes, moved to Paris to become an actor. He took private lessons and got his first television roles through the acquaintance of an agent in the early 1980s. He played his first leading role in the cinema in Yves Boisset's war drama Children for the Fatherland (1981), in which he can be seen as a young soldier with anti-militarist sentiments. This was followed by other supporting roles in films by well-known directors such as Claude Chabrol ( A Woman Like a Fish , 1982), Claude Goretta ( The Death of Mario Ricci , 1983) or Andrzej Żuławski ( The Public Woman , 1984). Belvaux's breakthrough as an actor paved the way for another collaboration with Chabrol on Chicken in Vinegar (1985). In the crime film about building speculation, he slipped into the role of a young murderer who is let go by the inspector Jean Poiret . The part of Louis earned Belvaux a nomination for César for Best Young Actor .

Despite leading roles under Jacques Rivette ( Sturmhöhe , 1985), Olivier Assayas ( Lebenswut , 1986) and Chabrol ( Madame Bovary , 1990) , the Belgian was unable to build on these successes , although he is still involved in film and television today. In the early 1990s, Belvaux turned successfully to work as a director and screenwriter. In 1992 he made his first feature film, the tragic comedy Parfois trop d'amour , which reports on three sailing friends who set off for northern France. Already his second feature film, the comedy Pour Rire! - You can laugh! (1996) with Ornella Muti , Jean-Pierre Léaud and Antoine Chappey in the leading roles, brought Belvaux the screenplay award of the Thessaloniki Film Festival .

His greatest success so far was with the film trilogy Cavale - On the Run , A Great Couple and After Life (all 2002), in which he also took on one of the leading roles. Formally laid out as a comedy, thriller and melodrama, the directing work was about a couple "in which the one withholds something from the other, takes refuge in imagined truths and thereby makes life unnecessarily complicated" . The main characters (including Belvaux, Dominique Blanc , Catherine Frot and Ornella Muti) in one film are self-contained and the secondary characters in the other. "The more you see, the more visual and content-related details, gaps and trivialities are revealed, which is due to the masterful staging, the tricky camera positions, the minimalist music and the montage," says the German film service . Belvaux earned its film trilogy high praise from critics and it has received several awards, including the Louis Delluc Prize , the Étoile d'Or and two César nominations.

With his next feature film, the crime comedy La raison du plus faible , the filmmaker and actor competed unsuccessfully in the 2006 Cannes Film Festival . Three years later, Belvaux was able to build on earlier successes with the kidnapping thriller Rapt , which was inspired by the actual kidnapping case of Édouard-Jean Empain (1978). The film with Yvan Attal in the lead role was nominated for four Césars, including in the categories of best film and best director.

In 2012 Belvaux filmed the novel The Death of Kitty Genovese by Didier Decoin with 38 témoins . The true story of eyewitnesses to a crime who do not intervene was moved from New York City to Le Havre and re-cast with Yvan Attal in the lead role.

Filmography (selection)

actor

Director

Awards

César

  • 1985: Nominated for Best Young Actor for Chicken in Vinegar
  • 2004: Nominated in the categories Best Director and Best Screenplay for Auf der Flucht , Ein tolles Paar and After Life
  • 2010 : nominated in the categories of Best Film and Best Director for Ransom

Further

Cannes International Film Festival

  • 2006 : nominated for the Palme d'Or for La raison du plus faible

Chlotrudis Awards

  • 2005: Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Auf der Flucht , Ein tolles Paar and After Life

Étoile d'Or

  • 2004: Best director for Auf der Flucht , A great couple and After life

Joseph Plateau Prize

  • 2004: Nominated as Best Belgian Director for On the Run , A Great Couple and After Life

Louis Delluc Prize

  • 2003: Best film for Auf der Flucht , A great couple and After life

Semana Internacional de Cine de Valladolid

  • 2003: nominated for the Golden Ear for On the Run , A Great Couple and After Life

Syndicate Français de la Critique de Cinéma

  • 2004: Best film for Auf der Flucht , A great couple and After life

Thessaloniki Film Festival

  • 1996: Best Screenplay for Pour Rire! - You can laugh!

literature

  • Mouëllic, Gilles: Jazz et cinéma: paroles de cinéastes . Paris: Séguier Archimbaud, 2006. - ISBN 9782840494768

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jacques Mandelbaum: Lucas Belvaux, Janus wallon du cinéma . In: Le Monde , July 29, 2002, Culture (accessed August 30, 2009 via LexisNexis Wirtschaft).
  2. ↑ a b Andrea Dittgen: Trilogy: Un couple épatant - A great couple . In: film-dienst , 14/2004 (accessed on August 30, 2009 via Munzinger Online ).
personal data
SURNAME Belvaux, Lucas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian actor and film director
DATE OF BIRTH November 14, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Namur , Belgium