Focus on French Cinema - French Film Festival of Greenwich

BIOGRAPHY
Director’s Biography
A philosophy professor, Brunot Dumont began his career in film initially by directing short sociological features and documentaries. With the aim to show the stark austerity of reality, he inspired himself with his home community Bailleul in the North of France in order to film his first long feature La Vie de Jésus in 1996. The film was was awarded a Mention Spéciale Caméra d'or at Cannes and the prix Jean Vigo in 1997. With the same, characteristic stripped down and brutal style, he shot L'Humanité , which won the Grand Prix du Jury at Cannes in 1999, as well as the best actor and actress awards for the two non-professional leads : Emmanuel Schotte and Séverine Caneele , an unprecedented event which caused a stir among the Cannes intelligentsia that year. In 2003, he broke from his usual tone and abandoned the Northern tip of France to shoot a hyper sexualised violent road movie in California, Twenty-nine palms. In 2006 he was again awarded the Grand Prix du Jury for his film Flandres which reconnected him to his Flemish roots and denounced, through its portrayal of the destinies of two young farmers in the midst of war, the human excesses that lead to devastating conflicts. With Hadewijch , shooting both in Paris and in the middle-East, Dumont turns his close, critical observation inward as he centers on religious mysticism and its fanatical extremities.