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Joachim Lafosse

Joachim Lafosse

Directing

Biography

Joachim Lafosse (born 18 January 1975; Uccle) is a Belgian film director and screenwriter. Lafosse studied at the IAD (Institut des arts de diffusion) at Louvain-la-Neuve between 1997 and 2001. His graduation film Tribu, a 24-minute short, won the best Belgian short subject category at the 2001 Namur Film Festival. His first full-length feature, Folie Privée (2004), won the FIPRESCI award at the Bratislava International Film Festival, and the semi-autobiographical Ça rend heureux (2006) took the Grand Prix at the 2007 Premiers Plans d'Angers festival. 2006 also saw the release of Nue Propriété, starring Isabelle Huppert and brothers Jérémie and Yannick Renier, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival where it was nominated for the Golden Lion and won a SIGNIS award. The film received the André Cavens Award for Best Film by the Belgian Film Critics Association (UCC). For his film Private Lessons (Élève libre), he was nominated for two Magritte Awards in the category of Best Director and Best Screenplay. His 2012 film Loving Without Reason competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. The film was selected as the Belgian entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist. It was nominated for seven Magritte Awards, winning four, including Best Film and Best Director for Lafosse.

Known For

After Love
6.1

Marie and Boris decide to get a divorce after 15 years of marriage. Tensions rise when cash-strapped Boris must continue to live with Marie and the two children while trying to figure out how to divide the assets.

After Love

2016
A Silence
5.1

Astrid is the wife of an acclaimed lawyer. Silenced for 25 years, her family balance suddenly collapses when her children initiate their search for justice.

A Silence

2024
Private Lessons
5.1

An aspiring tennis player is taken under the wing of an established player as his family life falls apart.

Private Lessons

2009
The Restless
6.8

Leila and Damien are deeply in love. Despite his bipolar disorder, he tries to pursue his life with her, knowing he may never be able to offer her what she desires.

The Restless

2021
Our Children
6.7

Young and full of life, Murielle has a promising future ahead of her when she meets and falls head over heels for Mounir. A wedding soon follows, and the happy couple quickly set about preparing to make a family. However, with family come ties, and none come as tight as that between Mounir and his adoptive father. As Murielle continues to bring new life into the family, frictions between Mounir and Doctor Pinget reach boiling point. Helpless to extract her husband and children from the wealthy nest that Doctor Pinget has provided for them, Murielle is drawn into an unhealthy family dynamic. There is only one way out of this nightmare, and for Murielle all sense of reasoning begins to abandon her.

Our Children

2012
Six Days in Spring
5.2

Despite adversity, Sana wants her twins to have a spring vacation, but all her plans fall through. They secretly decide to stay in her former in-laws' villa on the Riviera, without telling anyone. Six days of sunshine that mark the end of innocence.

Six Days in Spring

2025
Private Property
6.6

Pascale leads a lonely life with her adult sons François and Thierry at a rural estate subsidized by her ex-husband's alimony payments. When Pascale falls for neighbor Jan, she makes plans to move in with him. But Pascale's twin sons -- loafers who treat her like a servant and refuse to accept the responsibilities of adulthood -- won't let her go. The family remains locked in a stalemate until someone makes a startling move.

Private Property

2006
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N/A

Documentary about the making of Les Chevaliers blancs, the film Lafosse worked on for seven weeks in the Sahara. A shooting period marked by unusual working methods and unexpected challenges.

50 Days in the Desert

2016
Private Madness
7.2

Pascale leaves Jan to start a new life with Didier. Unwillingly, Jan accepts to get a babysitter for their seven year old son, Thomas. She leaves him at his family home where she now has to live with her new partner. But when Pascale comes to love with Didier, Jan is still there and refuses to leave the house and separate herself from her child. Very quickly, conflict explodes and in less than a day, the destiny of each character is turned upside down.

Private Madness

2004
The White Knights
5.6

Jacques Arnault, head of Sud Secours NGO, is planning a high impact operation: he and his team are going to exfiltrate 300 orphan victims of the Chadian civil war and bring them to French adoption applicants. Françoise Dubois, a journalist, is invited to come along with them and handle the media coverage for this operation. Completely immersed in the brutal reality of a country at war, the NGO members start losing their convictions and are faced with the limits of humanitarian intervention.

The White Knights

2015
Keep Going
5.4

Sybille, a divorced mother, can't stand watching her teenage son Samuel slip into a violent and meaningless life. She is also struggling with her own demons, past and present. As a last resort, she takes Samuel on a long journey across Kyrgyzstan.

Keep Going

2018
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6.5

Jan and Pascale are separating, leaving their son Thierry torn between two families.

Tribu

2001
What Makes You Happy
4.2

The efforts of a Belgian director who has to stick posters of his film everywhere and harass crowds to get people to come and see his film. When it turns out to be a flop, he is jobless and his partner leaves him. An ironic account of rising director Joachim La Fosse’s directing debut.

What Makes You Happy

2006
Mémoires Sélectives
N/A

At the twilight of their lives, Alice and Jean would have been lovers, parents and grandparents. But if this cycle ends peacefully for Alice, Jean, for his part, experiences the slow loss of his physical and mental means.

Mémoires Sélectives

2015
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An episode of Cinéastes d'aujourd'hui, a series of director portraits by the Francophone Community. Lafosse had then just completed Les Chevaliers blancs.

Au-delà des mots, le cinéma de Joachim Lafosse

2016
The Missing Half
6.5

Claire and Pierre's marriage hits the skids after Claire, pregnant with twins, feels that one embryo is crushing the other and decides to abort half the pregnancy.

The Missing Half

2003
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Everyone has seen "Scarface", the gangster movie. But do we know that "Scarface" means "scarred"? This is Raphael: a bit of a scarred gangster...

Scarface

2001
Before Words
N/A

No description available.

Before Words

2010
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Selfish Nature

2000
Tenir la distance
N/A

It is with Yann Dedet, the great French film editor known for his work with Truffaut and Pialat that the Belgian Joachim Lafosse has chosen to edit his fifth film, L’Économie du couple (After Love), the chronicle of a divorce and its emotional and economic repercussions on the couple and their children. The film shows that the interaction, sometimes fluid and sometimes tense, between two collaborators depends on an “economy of the couple”, whose intimacy is bared to the outside world when the critical step of a first screening for the producers arrives.

Tenir la distance

2017