Meet the Maestro: Meet Claire Denis

The Meet the Maestro project organised by the Province of South Holland takes a look every year at the oeuvre and motives of a high-profile film maker. This fourth edition of Meet the Maestro looks at the work of the Française Claire Denis. Having been born in Paris in 1948, she grew up in Africa where her father worked as a diplomat. She studied at the Paris Film Academy and was assistant director to Jim Jarmusch and Wim Wenders. With her successful, semi-autobiographical début Chocolat (1988), about colonialism in Africa, she immediately attracted attention. Since then she has worked on a large and important oeuvre comprising about 20 features, short films and documentaries. Denis’ cinema is physical, sensual and lyrical and shows the harder side of (French) society. During the IFFR, her latest film 35 Rhums is having its première.
Meet the Maestro is a cooperative venture between the IFFR, film theatres in South Holland and Kunstgebouw, commissioned by the Province of South Holland. Besides a tour of Nenette et Boni in the province, local schools are taking part in the educational project, and Sun Koh (Singapore) made a short film commissioned by the IFFR and inspired by the work of Claire Denis. (JJ)