Biography

Bertrand Bonello was born on September 11, 1968 in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France. He is a writer and director, known for The Beast (2023), Nocturama (2016) and House of Tolerance (2011).

He has a daughter named Anna Mouchette with Josée Deshaies, born on May 24th 2003, in Cannes, during the festival, while Tiresia (2003) was in competition.

Professor at La Fémis (Paris)

He was a musician before being a director.

[press conference for Saint Laurent (2014) at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival] The first thing we thought about with Thomas [Thomas Bidegain] when we had to write the film was how, in the space of two and a half hours, we could deal with the whole life of somebody. So I felt it was necessary to focus on a shorter period and we felt that that decade was the most rich, exciting time in terms of fashion - we're talking about a fashion designer after all - and also in terms of his life. During this decade you have a bit of everything. Yves Saint-Laurent is still quite a young man and at the end of the decade, everything has been said, everything has been done.

For me a shot is like a note, and I always ask myself when I need to hit the next note. And the thing is always to make it surprising, without it becoming ostentatious - to hit the note either too early or too late, so as not to fall into something metronomic.

[press conference for House of Tolerance (2011) at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival] If you're forming a group you need individuals, so each choice was dictated by very different reasons. There were some things I was looking for; the first thing was to have actresses who gave a contemporary look to the film while at the same time being credible as part of a film set in 1900. The second thing I was looking for was that this group, this ensemble did genuinely exist, but at the same time I wanted people who came from very different backgrounds because I didn't want the style, the acting to be too uniform. The first I think was Céline [Céline Sallette] - she was the first I chose - she comes from a classical acting background and I didn't want two actresses with that same type of background. So then I took Hafsia [Hafsia Herzi] who comes from a different background, Alice [Alice Barnole] who's never acted before. All these are parts of a puzzle. And then when you come to the last choice, which was Jasmine [Jasmine Trinca]; I chose Jasmine because she interested me as an actress and because she was the missing piece in the puzzle. A very pretty puzzle, and of course they had to be good actresses. The casting procedure took 8 or 9 months, between the choice of Céline and that of Jasmine.