Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne | |
|---|---|
 Luc (right) and Jean-Pierre Dardenne in 2015 | |
| Born | Jean-Pierre: (1951-04-21)21 April 1951 (age 74) Liège, Belgium Luc: (1954-03-10)10 March 1954 (age 71) Liège, Belgium |
| Occupation(s) | Film directors,producers,screenwriters |
| Years active | 1978–present |
| Awards | Full list |
BrothersJean-Pierre DardenneCMW (French:[daʁdɛn]; born 21 April 1951)[1] andLuc DardenneCMW (born 10 March 1954),[1] collectively referred to asthe Dardenne brothers, are aBelgian filmmaking duo. They write, produce, and direct their films together.[1] Their work tends to reflectleft-wing themes and points-of-view in contemporary Europe. They also own the production companyLes Films du Fleuve.
The Dardennes began making narrative and documentary films in the late 1970s. They came to international attention in the mid-1990s withLa Promesse. They won their first major international film prize whenRosetta won thePalme d'Or at the1999 Cannes Film Festival. In 2005, they won the Palme d'Or a second time for their filmL'Enfant, putting them in an small club, at the time, of only seven fimmakers to ever win twice.Lorna's Silence (2008), won theBest Screenplay prize at the2008 Cannes Film Festival.
Their 8th film,The Kid with a Bike, won theGrand Prix at the2011 Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for theGolden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film alongside eightMagritte Award nominations.[2] In 2015, their filmTwo Days, One Night received nineMagritte Award nominations (winning three) and oneAcademy Award nomination for Best Actress forMarion Cotillard. Their 2019 featureYoung Ahmed won theBest Director at the2019 Cannes Film Festival,[3] while their 2022 filmTori and Lokita won the 75th Anniversary Prize at the2022 Cannes Film Festival.[4]
Creators of intensely naturalistic films about working class life in Belgium, brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne have created a notable body of work since 1996. WithLa Promesse (The Promise) (1996),Rosetta (1999),Le Fils (The Son) (2002), andL'Enfant (The Child) (2005), the Dardennes' films show young people at the fringes of society – immigrants, the unemployed, the inhabitants of shelters. BothRosetta andL'Enfant were awarded thePalme d'Or at theCannes Film Festival, the only two Belgian films ever to earn the honor.
The Dardennes were born and raised inSeraing inLiege, inWallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium. Jean-Pierre (born in 1951) studied drama while Luc (born three years later) studied philosophy.[citation needed] In 1975 they established Derives, the production company that produced the roughly sixty documentary films they made before branching into feature films. These films covered such topics as Polish immigration, World War II resistance, a general strike in 1960. Their first two feature films, however, are rarely seen today:Falsch (1987) adapted fromRené Kalisky, featuringBruno Cremer andJe pense a vous (1992). The Dardennes had their first international success withLa Promesse (The Promise) in 1996.
In 1994, they launched the production companyLes Films du Fleuve, which produces all of their films and also films by other European directors such asKen Loach,Jacques Audiard andBenoît Jacquot.[5][6]
WithRosetta the Dardennes turned their focus to the burdens – philosophical, spiritual, psychological – of unemployment.Émilie Dequenne, who had not acted in film before, and was awarded the Best Actress Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, is the title character, a young woman living with her alcoholic mother in a trailer park. The film is about Rosetta's search for purpose and to Rosetta purpose can only be found through work – she makes her way through Seraing's fringes for the most menial of positions; she catches fish in the muddy, murky stream by her trailer park.Rosetta was the first Belgian film ever to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes, coming in ahead of films byDavid Lynch,Pedro Almodóvar,Takeshi Kitano, andRaoul Ruiz. The film provided some impetus for a labor law designed to protect young workers like Rosetta shortly after the film's release. "'[I]t was pure chance,' Jean-Pierre insists. 'There was already a bill going through, and the minister took advantage of our award to call it the Rosetta Law. But we never intended to get laws changed.' Luc adds: 'Of course, we always hope our films will speak to people, disturb them, but we never hoped to change the world'."[citation needed]
Crimes and occupations again figure prominently in the Dardennes' fourth film,L'Enfant (The Child). The film earned the Dardennes the Palme d'Or from Cannes, their second in seven years.L'Enfant won theAndré Cavens Award in 2005, making directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne fourth-time winners of the award.[citation needed]
The Dardenne brothers have a regular stable of collaborators (for all of their films the brothers share writing and directing credits), including cinematographerAlain Marcoen and editorMarie-Hélène Dozo.Jérémie Renier played Igor inLa Promesse, Bruno inL'Enfant, Claudy inLe Silence de Lorna (Lorna's Silence), Guy inLe gamin au vélo (The Kid with a Bike), and Bryan's father inThe Unknown Girl (La Fille inconnue).Olivier Gourmet, the main character ofLe fils, has brief cameos as a detective inL'Enfant and as a bullying character in "La Fille Inconnue". LikeRosetta's Emilie Dequenne,Déborah François, the seventeen-year-old lead inL'Enfant, was appearing in her first film. Luc Dardenne has described their process of working with actors as follows: "What we do with the actors is also very physical. The day filming begins we do not feel obliged to do things exactly the way they were rehearsed; we pretend that we are starting over from zero so that we can rediscover things that we did before. The instructions we give the actors are above all physical. We start working without the cameraman—just the actors and my brother and me. We walk them through the blocking, first one then the other, trying several different versions. They say but do not act their lines. We do not tell them what the tone of their lines should be; we just say that we will see once the camera is rolling. At this point there is no cameraman, no sound engineer, no lighting. Then we set up all the camera movements exactly and the rhythm of the shot, which is usually a long take. Doing it this way allows us the ability to modify the actors' movements or any small details."[citation needed]
The Dardennes often employ handheld cameras and use available light.[citation needed] In 2009, they signed a petition in support of directorRoman Polanski, who had been detained while traveling to a film festival in relation to his 1977sexual abuse charges, which the petition argued would undermine the tradition of film festivals as a place for works to be shown "freely and safely", and that arresting filmmakers traveling to neutral countries could open the door "for actions of which no-one can know the effects."[7][8]
In June 2012, the brothers were invited to join theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[9] In the same year Jean-Pierre was the jury president for the Cinéfoundation and Short Films sections of the2012 Cannes Film Festival.[10]
Their 2014 filmTwo Days, One Night was selected to compete for thePalme d'Or in the main competition section at the2014 Cannes Film Festival.[11] The film received nine nominations at the5th Magritte Awards, winning three, includingBest Film andBest Director.[12]Marion Cotillard received anAcademy Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance in the film, the first Oscar nomination for a Dardenne brothers film.[13]
In 2014, their body of work was awarded the special prize of the 40th Anniversary of theEcumenical Jury at the Cannes Film Festival.[14]
In 2016, they releasedThe Unknown Girl (La Fille inconnue), starringAdèle Haenel as a young doctor who lets the door buzzer of her small clinic go unanswered one evening after work hours and then grows determined to discover the identity of the young woman found dead nearby when the police see from a security tape that she had been the person ringing at the door.[15][16]
Their 2019 filmYoung Ahmed, a film about a Belgian teenager embracing Islamic extremism,[17] was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and they won the Best Director prize.[18]
Their 2022 filmTori and Lokita,[19] was nominated for the Palme d'Or at theCannes Film Festival and won the 75th Anniversary Prize.[4]
| Year | English Title | Original Title | Directors | Screenwriters | Producers | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 | Falsch | Yes | Yes | |||
| 1992 | Je pense à vous | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| 1996 | La Promesse | Yes | Yes | |||
| 1999 | Rosetta | Yes | Yes | Yes | Palme d'Or at the1999 Cannes Film Festival | |
| 2002 | The Son | Le Fils | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2005 | L'Enfant | Yes | Yes | Yes | Palme d'Or at the2005 Cannes Film Festival | |
| 2008 | Lorna's Silence | Le Silence de Lorna | Yes | Yes | Yes | Best Screenplay at the2008 Cannes Film Festival |
| 2011 | The Kid with a Bike | Le gamin au vélo | Yes | Yes | Yes | Grand Prix at the2011 Cannes Film Festival |
| 2014 | Two Days, One Night | Deux jours, une nuit | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2016 | The Unknown Girl | La Fille inconnue | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2019 | Young Ahmed | Le Jeune Ahmed | Yes | Yes | Yes | Best Director at the2019 Cannes Film Festival |
| 2022 | Tori and Lokita | Tori et Lokita | Yes | Yes | Yes | 75th Anniversary Special Award at the2022 Cannes Film Festival |
| 2025 | The Young Mother's Home | Jeunes mères | Yes | Yes | Yes | Post-Production |
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Faute de soleil | Co-producers |
| 2001 | The Milk of Human Kindness | |
| 2003 | The Living World | |
| Stormy Weather | ||
| The Sun Assassinated | ||
| 2005 | The Axe | |
| 2006 | The Colonel | |
| 2007 | Vous êtes de la police? | |
| 2009 | The Front Line | |
| 2010 | K.O.R. | |
| 2011 | The Minister | |
| 2012 | Rust and Bone | Co-producers |
| Beyond the Hills | ||
| 2013 | Marina | |
| Je fais le mort | ||
| 2014 | Wild Life | |
| 2015 | Diary of a Chambermaid | |
| 2015 | Cowboys | |
| 2015 | Long Live the Bride | |
| 2016 | Le Fils de Joseph | |
| Hedi | ||
| Graduation | ||
| Pericle | ||
| Les Carnivores | ||
| 2023 | Jeanne du Barry | |
| 2023 | The Old Oak |
| Year | Title | Credited as | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Directors | Screenwriters | Producers | |||
| 1978 | Le Chant du rossignol | Yes | |||
| 1980 | Pour que la guerre s'achève, les murs devraient s'écrouler | Yes | Yes | ||
| 1981 | R... ne répond plus | Yes | Yes | Also cinematographers and editors | |
| 1982 | Leçons d'une université volante | Yes | Yes | Also cinematographers | |
| 1983 | Regarde Jonathan, Jean Louvet, son œuvre | Yes | Also editors andcamera operators | ||
| 1997 | Gigi, Monica... et Bianca | Yes | Executive producers | ||
| 2000 | La Devinière | Yes | Line producer | ||
| 2002 | Brook by Brook | Yes | TV; co-producers | ||
| 2002 | Romances de terre et d'eau | Yes | |||
| 2005 | Il fare politica | Yes | |||
| 2006 | Rwanda, les collines parlent | Yes | |||
| 2007 | Why We Can't See Each Other Outside When the Sun is Shining | Yes | |||
| 2009 | Children Without a Shadow | Yes | Executive producers | ||
| 2012 | Un été avec Anton | Yes | TV | ||
| 2013 | À ciel ouvert | Yes | Co-producers | ||
| Year | Title | Credited as | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Directors | Screenwriters | Producers | |||
| 1979 | Lorsque le bateau de Leon M. descendit la Meuse pour la première fois | Yes | Yes | Documentary; also cinematographers | |
| 1987 | Il court, il court, le monde | Yes | Yes | ||
| 1999 | L'Héritier | Yes | Executive producers | ||
| 2002 | First Love | Yes | |||
| 2007 | Dans l'obscurité | Yes | Yes | Segment of theanthology filmTo Each His Own Cinema | |
| 2008 | Premier Jour | Yes | |||
| 2011 | Bloody Eyes | Yes | |||
