Anne Fontaine


Anne Fontaine is a Luxembourgish film director, screenwriter, and former actress. She lives and works in France.

Life and career

Born Anne-Fontaine Sibertin-Blanc in Luxembourg, sister of actor Jean-Chrétien Sibertin-Blanc, she went as a young child to live in Lisbon, where her father, Antoine Sibertin-Blanc, is a music professor and cathedral organist. In adolescence she moved to Paris and trained in dance with Joseph Russillo while continuing her academic education, including philosophy. Her husband is Philippe Carcassonne, the film producer, and they have an adopted son, Tienne, who was born in Cambodia.
While still dancing, she was picked by Robert Hossein to play Esmeralda in a 1980 theatrical production of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and around this time started to use the name Anne Fontaine. She continued with acting and became known for her roles in comedies like Si ma gueule vous plaît... and P.R.O.F.S.. An opportunity to be assistant director came with a 1986 stage version of Louis-Ferdinand Céline's Journey to the End of the Night at the Renaud-Barrault theatre.
Fontaine's first project as solo director, Les Histoires d'amour finissent mal... en général, won the 1993 Prix Jean Vigo. In 1995, she worked with her brother on the comedy Augustin. Two years later, she wrote and directed the successful Dry Cleaning. It won the Best Screenplay award at the 1997 Venice Film Festival and is generally considered a milestone on Fontaine's way to becoming "an important figure in contemporary French cinema".
In 1999 the character Augustin re-appeared in Fontaine's film Augustin, King of Kung-Fu. How I Killed My Father was released in 2001, and Nathalie... followed in 2003. The 2005 film, Entre ses mains was widely described as a thriller: an "intimate thriller" according to Fontaine herself. A third Augustin film, Nouvelle chance was released in 2006. Then came The Girl From Monaco in 2008 and Coco Before Chanel, her biopic of Coco Chanel, in 2009.
Fontaine's work is not easily categorised, though the phrase "psychological drama" is often used. She told a UK newspaper, "I try to work on my characters' blind side, in a kind of Freudian way: to ask, 'What are the things about themselves that they're unaware of?' I'm fascinated by the irony of fate, when something goes into a skid. All my stories have an element of cruelty in them."
While knowing that the movement of "women's cinema" worked as a counter to the classical Hollywood system, Fontaine didn't like to identify with this. During an interview in 1998 with Eve-Laure Moros, she stated: "If people say that 'Nettoyage a sec' is a woman's film, I'm very surprised, I don't know what that means... I think that to be a filmmaker, as far as sexuality, it's something that's really de-sexualizing. That is, you become a bizarre thing, when you're directing a film---during the shooting, you're neither a man nor a woman, you're really something strange and very ambivalent."

Filmography

Film
YearTitleDirectorWriterNotesRef.
1993Les Histoires d'amour finissent mal... en général
1995Augustin
1997L'@mour est à réinventerSegment: Tapin du soir
1997Dry Cleaning
1999Augustin, King of Kung-Fu
2001How I Killed My Father
2003Nathalie...
2005Entre ses mains
2006Oh La La!
2008The Girl from Monaco
2009Coco Before Chanel
2011My Worst Nightmare
2013Two Mothers
2014Gemma Bovery
2016The Innocents
2017Reinventing Marvin
2019White as Snow
2020Night Shift
2021Presidents
2024Boléro

Acting roles
YearTitleRoleNotes
1980Les Mystères de ParisSarahTV mini-series
1980Tendres CousinesJustine
1981Si ma gueule vous plaît...Isabelle
1982Caméra une premièreAlbaTV series
1984Le Mystérieux Docteur CornéliusAndrée de MaubreuilTV mini-series
1985Entre chats et loupsCarole LambertTV movie
1985P.R.O.F.S.Marite
1986Grand hôtelMariteTV series
1987Children and the White WhaleClaudineTV movie
1988Carte de pressePaulineTV mini-series
1986–1990Série roseMathilde / Mme OrlovaTV series
1999Pas de scandaleNathalie

Awards and nominations

BAFTA Awards
YearCategoryTitleResult
2009Best Film Not in the English LanguageCoco Before ChanelNomitated

César Awards
YearCategoryTitleResult
1998Best Original Screenplay or AdaptationDry CleaningNomitated
2006Best AdaptationEntre ses mainsNomitated
2010Best AdaptationCoco Before ChanelNomitated
2017Best FilmThe InnocentsNomitated
2017Best DirectorThe InnocentsNomitated
2017Best Original ScreenplayThe InnocentsNomitated

Venice Film Festival
YearCategoryTitleResult
1997Golden OsellaDry CleaningWon
1997Golden LionDry CleaningNomitated

Lumière Awards
YearCategoryTitleResult
2009Best FilmCoco Before ChanelNomitated
2009Best DirectorCoco Before ChanelNomitated

'''Other awards'''