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Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer. Since 1996, Wenders has been the president of the European Film Academy in Berlin. Wenders was born in Düsseldorf into a traditional catholic family. His father, Heinrich Wenders, was a... surgeon. Use of the Dutch name, "Wim", a shortened version of the baptismal name "Wilhelm/Willem", reflected his mother's Dutch provenance, but the Dutch version was rejected by the civil registration authorities in 1945 as "unGerman". He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf. However, he dropped out of university studies and moved to Paris in October 1966 to become a painter. Wenders failed his entry test at France's national film school IDHEC , and instead became an engraver in the studio of Johnny Friedlander, an American artist, in Montparnasse. During this time, Wenders became fascinated with cinema, and saw up to five movies a day at the local movie theater.
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Gus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American film director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director — for Good Will Hunting and Milk , both of which were also nominated for Best Picture — and won the Palme... d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his film Elephant . He lives in Portland, Oregon. His early career was devoted to directing television commercials in the Pacific Northwest. In his films, he has dealt with themes concerning homosexuality and other marginalized subcultures. His filmography as writer and director includes a 1994 adaptation of Tom Robbins' 1976 novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which features a diverse cast ; and My Own Private Idaho , also starring Reeves as well as River Phoenix. He wrote the screenplays for most of his early movies, and wrote one novel, Pink. A book of his photography has also been published, called 108 Portraits.
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Abderrahmane Sissako is an award-winning film director and producer who has often worked in Mali and France. Sissako is, along with Ousmane Sembène, Souleymane Cissé, Idrissa Ouedraogo and Djibril Diop Mambety, one of the few filmmakers from Sub-Saharan Africa to reach a measure of... international influence. His film Waiting for Happiness was screened at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival official selection under Un Certain Regard, winning the FIPRESCI Prize. His 2007 film Bamako received much attention. Sissako's themes include globalisation, exile and the displacement of people. Soon after his birth Sissako's family emigrated to Mali, his father's country, where he completed part of his primary and secondary education. Sissako returned briefly to Mauritania, his mother's land, in 1980. Then he left for Moscow, where he studied cinema at the VGIK from 1983 to 1989. Sissako settled in France at the beginning of the 1990s.
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Jan Kounen is a Dutch-born French film director and producer. In France, he is mostly known for his films Dobermann , Blueberry, l'experience secrete and 99 francs . Outside of France, he is rather known for his interest in Shipibo-Conibo culture and shamanism, with which he became familiar... during his trips to Mexico and Peru, and for some music videos.
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Gaspar Noé is an Argentine filmmaker and the son of Argentine painter and intellectual Luis Felipe Noé. He graduated from Louis Lumière College and is the visiting professor of film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Three of his films feature the character of... a nameless butcher played by Philippe Nahon: Carne, I Stand Alone and, in a cameo, Irréversible. Carne was the recipient of the Critic's Award at the 5th Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival in February 1994. The films of Stanley Kubrick are one source of inspiration for Noé, and he occasionally makes references to them in his own works. Noé also cites the 1983 Austrian serial killer film Angst, by Gerald Kargl, as a major influence. He is married to filmmaker Lucile Hadžihalilović. His work has been linked to the New French Extremity.
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Mira Nair is an Indian film director and producer based in New York. Her production company is Mirabai Films. She was educated at Delhi University and Harvard University. Her debut feature film, Salaam Bombay! , won the Golden Camera award at the Cannes Film Festival and also earned the nomination... for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. She used the proceeds of the film, to establish an organization for street children, called the Salaam Baalak Trust in India. She often works with longtime creative collaborator, screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala, whom she met at Harvard. She has won a number of awards, including a National Film Award and various international film festival awards, and was a nominee at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, BAFTA Awards and Filmfare Awards. She was also awarded the India Abroad Person of the Year-2007, which was presented by Indra Nooyi, Chairperson and CEO, PepsiCo, Inc, and India Abroad Person of the Year-2006. In 2012 she was awarded India's third highest civilian award the Padma Bhushan by President of India, Pratibha Patil.
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Gael García Bernal is a Mexican film actor and director. García Bernal was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, the son of Patricia Bernal, an actress and former model, and José Ángel García, an actor and director. His stepfather is Sergio Yazbek, whom his mother married when... García Bernal was young. He started acting at just a year old and spent most of his teen years starring in telenovelas. Gael studied the International Baccalaureate, with chemistry being his favorite subject. When he was fourteen, he taught indigenous peoples in Mexico to read, often working with the Huichol Indians. In his later teens, he took part in peaceful demonstrations during the Chiapas uprising of 1994. García Bernal was becoming a soap opera heartthrob, but at age of 19, he left Mexico's television world to study acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, becoming the first person from Mexico to be accepted into the program. In the brief period beforehand, he had begun to study philosophy at UNAM, Mexico's national university, before a strike closed the college and he then left for London.
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Jane Campion is a filmmaker screenwriter and director from New Zealand. Campion is the second of four women ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. Campion was born in Wellington, New Zealand, the daughter of Edith, an actress, and Richard Campion, a theater and opera director. She... graduated with a degree in anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington in 1975. In 1976 she attended Chelsea Art School in London and travelled in Europe. She graduated with a painting major at the Sydney College of the Arts in Australia in 1979. She made her first short film, Tissues in 1981. In 1982 she began studying at the Australian Film and Television School where she made further short films. Campion started making films in the early 1980s at the Australian Film Television and Radio School. Her first short film, Peel won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival, and other awards followed for the shorts Passionless Moments , Girls Own Story and After Hours .
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