Biography

Born in 1968, Julie Bertucelli worked as Assistant Director to a series of well-known directors including Otar Iosseliani, Krystof Kieslowski, Bertrand Tavernier, Emmanuel Finkiel and Rithy Panh. She then went on to direct a number of documentaries, all of which proved to be a considerable success. "Since Otar Left" is her first feature film. It won the Grand Jury Prize of the Critic's week at Cannes in 2003. She studied philosophy before being trained as a documentary filmmaker at the Ateliers Varan in Paris. {{Anonymous)
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous

First assistant to such famed directors as Otar Iosseliani, Rithy Panh, René Féret, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Emmanuel Finkiel or Bertrand Tavernier, Julie Bertuccelli started directing her own films in 1993. Mainly a documentarist, she is the author of over a dozen works where she proves an acute - but also a most humane - observer of French society. The high quality of her documentaries has soon been acknowledged and rewarded, for instance by the Patrimoine Prize for La fabrique des juges ou les règles du jeu (1998). Three of her non-fiction movies are particularly remarkable, " Bienvenue au Grand Magasin ", a chronicle of the everyday life at the Galeries Lafayette, the Paris department store (1999); " Le merle siffleur ", a wonderfully lively portrait of her master, Otar Iosseliani; and School of Babel (2013), a heartwarming (but in no way goody-goody) report on a " classe d'accueil ", a class in which new-coming teenage students from all over the world are gathered to improve their mastery of French and - mainly - to help them become integrated into French society. A masterpiece in its genre. But Julie Bertuccelli has more than one string to her bow. Her two fiction films, Since Otar Left (2003) and The Tree (2010) do show real narrative talents. A really gifted filmmaker, Julie Bertuccelli still has much to tell us.
- IMDb mini biography by: Guy Bellinger