Christophe Honoré
Christophe Honoré was writing when he was a teenager, even if he already knew that he wanted, above all, to be a film-maker. He became one after his university studies in Rennes, juggling several activities at the same time: film critic, in particular for Les Cahiers de cinéma, scriptwriter, novelist, among others in his youth, and of course feature film director starting in 2002. His first film, 17 Times Cécile Cassard, instantly made him a rising star of young French cinema. With My Mother (2004), In Paris (2006), then Love Songs (2007), The Beautiful Person (2008), No My Daughter You Won't Go Dancing (2009), The Man in the Bath (2010) and The Loved Ones (2011), he has asserted his desire for a contemporary novelistic approach, without denying himself the right to be inspired by classic works like The Princess of Clèves, which strongly influenced The Beautiful Person. In the theatre, he is first an author with The Debutants (1998), The Worst of the Flock (2001), Beautiful Guys (2004) and Impotent Dionysus, presented in 2005 in the framework of the 25th Hour at the Festival d'Avignon. He returned to the Festival in 2009 to stage Victor Hugo's romantic drama: Angelo, Tyrant of Padua. This year, he is coming back with his new work, Nouveau Roman, but also with two other plays: The Faculty, written at the request of Éric Vigner for the actors of the Académie internationale de theatre of the CDDB-Théâtre de Lorient, the national drama centre where Christophe Honoré is associate artist, and A Young Man is Killed, which will be played by the most recent graduating class of the École de la Comédie in Saint-Étienne, staged by Robert Cantarella.
JFP, April, 2012