The Most Precious of Cargoes

Michel Hazanavicius was born in Paris in 1967. After attending art school, he began his career in 1988 on television alongside the comedy group Les Nuls (Canal+). In 1994, he co-wrote Delphine 1 – Yvan 0 (1994) for director Dominique Farrugia. He followed writing radio shows for Les Nuls by directing firstly the short film Échec au Capital (1996), and then the feature film Mes Amis (1999). He directed many advertisements, earning numerous prizes, including a Cannes Silver Lion. In 2005, he co-wrote and co-produced a documentary about the genocide in Rwanda, Rwanda: History of a Genocide. However, his career reached a turning point when he directed the offbeat spy movie OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006), starring Jean Dujardin as a secret agent and Bérénice Bejo as his partner. He would reteam with Dujardin three years later for OSS 117: Lost in Rio (2009). And it was once more with Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, that the director would find international renown with The Artist , which premiered at Cannes in 2011. Wildly ambitious, this black-and-white silent movie follows the career of George Valentin, a silent movie star in the Hollywood of the 1920s, who is ousted by the advent of the talkies. The film garnered many awards worldwide, most notably receiving a total of five Oscars. His film The Search (2014), a drama telling the story of three linked destinies, set during the Second Chechen War. In 2017, Michel Hazanavicius established his production company, Les Compagnons du Cinéma, with Riad Sattouf and Florence Gastaud, through which he would produce his next feature, Godard Mon Amour,(2017). Inspired by Anne Wiazemsky’s book Un an après, the film screened in the Official Competition at Cannes and stars Louis Garrel, Stacy Martin, and, once again, Bérénice Bejo. In 2019, he directed Τhe Lost Prince,, a film about imagination and childhood starring Omar Sy and Bérénice Bejo, released in cinemas in January 2020. In May 2020, Michel Hazanavicius publishes the complete dialogues from his first cult film, La Classe Américaine (1993), with Allary Editions. The book is an adaptation of the Larousse Classics of the 1980s. That same year, he chairs the jury at the 26th Sarajevo Film Festival. In 2021, he shot the live-action film Final Cut, presented out of competition at the opening of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. Meanwhile, Michel Hazanavicius is Chairman of the Board of Directors of La Fémis.

1997 Echec au capital (short)
1999 Mes amis
2006 OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies
2009 OSS 117: Lost in Rio
2011 The Artist
2014 The Search
2017 Godard Mon Amour
2020 The Lost Prince
2022 Final Cut
2024 The Most Precious of Cargoes