FEEL IT.STREAM
Michel Hazanavicius

Michel Hazanavicius

Directing

Biography

Michel Haznavicius (born 29 March 1967) is a French film director, producer and screenwriter best known for his spy movie parodies OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio, both of which star Jean Dujardin. His 2011 film The Artist competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival but lost to The Tree of Life. Dujardin though won the best actor prize at Cannes for his role in The Artist. Hazanavicius was born in Paris. His family is Jewish, and originally from Lithuania. His grandparents were from both Poland and Lithuania and settled in France in the 1920s. Before directing films, Hazanavicius worked in television, beginning with the Canal+ channel, where he started as a director in 1988. He began directing commercials for companies such as Reebok and Bouygues Telecom, and then, in 1993, he made his first feature-length film, La Classe américaine, for television. The film, co-directed with Dominique Mézerette, consisted entirely of footage taken from various films produced by the Warner Bros. studio, re-edited and dubbed into French. In 1997, Hazanavicius directed his first short film, Echec au capital, and followed it up with his first theatrically released feature, Mes amis, which starred his brother, actor Serge Hazanavicius. Seven years later, Hazanavicius wrote and directed his second feature, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, a parody of 1960s spy movies and specifically of OSS 117, a popular character created by Jean Bruce in 1949. The $17.5 million film was a modest box office success, with $23 million worldwide receipts. A sequel, OSS 117: Lost in Rio, followed in 2009. Both films were later distributed in the United States by Music Box Films. The Artist, a black and white film without dialogue which takes place in Hollywood on the eve of sound film, screened in competition at the 2011 Cannes International Film Festival. The Artist was later released to universal acclaim. On 24 January 2012 Hazanavicius received nominations for three Oscars: the Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing. Hazanavicius said winning an Oscar would be "like dreaming of going to the moon – you don't really believe it could ever happen." Hazanavicius won the Academy Award for Best Director for The Artist, at the 84th Academy Awards. He was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2012 along with 175 other individuals. He contributed a section to the omnibus film The Players (Les Infidèles) starring Jean Dujardin. He then announced that his next feature film would be a remake of the 1948 Fred Zinnemann film The Search. The film stars Berenice Bejo in the Montgomery Clift role as an NGO worker helping a little boy find his family in modern-day Chechnya and was produced by Thomas Langmann. Golden Globe Award actress winner Annette Bening also stars in the film. Hazanavicius was in a relationship with film director Virginia Lovisone, and they have two daughters together, Simone and Fantine. He is married to Bérénice Bejo, who acted in his films OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, The Artist and The Search. Hazanavicius and Bejo have two children together: Lucien and Gloria.

Known For

Kulturplatz
6.0

No description available.

Kulturplatz

2004
C ce soir, le débat
2.0

No description available.

C ce soir, le débat

2021
Faut Voir - L'Hebdo cinéma
N/A

No description available.

Faut Voir - L'Hebdo cinéma

2023
Beau geste
1.0

No description available.

Beau geste

2023
Burger Quiz
7.4

A French humorous game show taking place in a burger restaurant which is managed by the TV host.

Burger Quiz

2001
Cérémonie des César
4.6

The César Awards are cinematographic awards created in 1976 and presented annually in Paris to professionals of the 7th art in various categories to recognize the best French productions. They are often cited as the French equivalent of the Oscars in the United States.

Cérémonie des César

1976
Quelle époque !
5.0

Talk show hosted by Léa Salamé, featuring incisive, funny, and surprising personalities debating current events in culture, society, politics, and the media. The set is designed as an arena where artists, polemicists, intellectuals, politicians, top athletes, and powerful figures come together. Permanent guest Christophe Dechavanne can intervene at any time during the show. Comedian Philippe Caverivière is also present with a segment dedicated to the political week and another devoted to celebrity news and social media.

Quelle époque !

2022
Baise-en-ville
6.4

Sprite, a 20-year-old young adult, returns to Chelles after a breakup. To pay for his driver’s license and please his parents, he joins Allo Nettoyo, a night-time cleaning start-up in the Paris suburbs. Unable to get around without a permit, he adopts the "baise-en-ville" technique—taught by his driving instructor—which involves spending the night at girls' places of girls he meets through a dating app. Sprite struggles with this new approach to seduction.

Baise-en-ville

2026
The Artist
7.4

Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.

The Artist

2011
The Money Maker
7.0

In post-war France, Jan Bojarski, a young Polish refugee, became the greatest counterfeiter of all time, the "Cézanne of counterfeit money". For more than fifteen years, this man led a double life, unbeknownst to his family, making counterfeits in a garden shed that were "truer" than the bills issued by the Banque de France... All these years, this peerless counterfeiter managed to avoid being caught by the police, and became the bête noire of Commissaire Mattei in a hunt that, for these two obsessives, turned into a duel.

The Money Maker

2026
OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies
7.2

Set in 1955, French secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath/OSS 117 is sent to Cairo to investigate the disappearance of his best friend and fellow spy Jack Jefferson, only to stumble into a web of international intrigue.

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies

2006
Têtàtête(s)
N/A

No description available.

Têtàtête(s)

2023
The Most Precious of Cargoes
7.7

Once upon a time, a poor woodcutter and his wife lived in a great forest. Cold, hunger, poverty, and a war raging all around them meant their lives were very hard. One day, the woodcutter's wife rescues a baby. A baby girl thrown from one of the many trains that constantly pass through the forest. This baby, this "most precious of cargoes", will transform the lives of the poor woodcutter's wife and her husband, as well as those whose paths the child will cross—including the man who threw her from the train. And some will try to protect her, whatever the cost. Their story will reveal the worst and the best in the hearts of men.

The Most Precious of Cargoes

2024
Fear City: A Family-Style Comedy
7.5

A second-class horror movie has to be shown at Cannes Film Festival, but, before each screening, the projectionist is killed by a mysterious fellow, with hammer and sickle, just as it happens in the film to be shown.

Fear City: A Family-Style Comedy

1994
Vidéo Club
7.5

No description available.

Vidéo Club

2018
Final Cut
6.7

Things go badly for a small film crew shooting a low-budget zombie movie when they are attacked by real zombies.

Final Cut

2022
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché
7.2

The epic life story of Alice Guy-Blaché (1873–1968), a French screenwriter, director and producer, true pioneer of cinema, the first person who made a narrative fiction film; author of hundreds of movies, but banished from history books. Ignored and forgotten. At last remembered.

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché

2018
En société
N/A

No description available.

En société

2023
Reality
7.1

A wanna-be director is given 48 hours by a producer to find the best groan of pain, worthy of an Oscar, as the only condition to back his film.

Reality

2015
La Classe américaine
6.5

The story of the successful publicity campaign that made it possible for the French film The Artist (2011) to win five Academy Awards: an intimate look at what happens when a silent, black-and-white French film astounds Hollywood.

La Classe américaine

2012