Biography

Christian Carion was born in a family of farmers in the North of France. Despite nursing a passion for films since he was 13, he travels a scientific path. After passing his baccalauréat, he joins an engineering school affiliated to the french ministry of agriculture, thus answering his family's wishes.

Yet the movies were never far away, and at a point he no longer could hide his wishes to make films. He rented a camera and began shooting films he himself describes as « uninteresting ». At that moment he met Christophe Rossignon. Both men decide there and then to start making movies. Christian Carion will be the film-maker and Christophe Rossignon the producer. And sometimes an actor as in the short film Carion shoots in 1999: Monsieur le député.

In 2001, Christian Carion directs his first feature film: Une hirondelle a fait le printemps (The girl from Paris), the story, an hommage to his upbringing, tells the meeting of a brooding farmer, Michel Serrault, and a parisian girl seeking the calm of the countryside, played by Mathilde Seigner. The movie is a hit, seducing over 2,4 millions of french moviegoers.

The success allows Carion to move on to a more ambitious project, Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas). A movie he had in mind since 1993. Screened in Cannes for the film festival in 2005, this historic movie depicts the fraternizations of warriors on the eve of Christmas during World War I. The movie, a huge public success, was nominated numerous times in the french Cesar and was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

Two years later, he filmed another historic movie ; L'affaire Farewell''(Farewell), with Emir Kusturica and Guillaume Canet. A spy movie set in Russia and based on true events.

In 2014 he shot, on the roads of northern France, En mai, fais ce qu'il te plaît (Come what may). Another historical piece about the exodus of millions of people in may 1940, when France was falling apart and the inhabitants of northern France were fleeing the german troops. Written using numerous recollections from the northern people, the movie depicts the quest of a german dissident, looking for his son. The original music was composed by Enio Morricone.
- IMDb mini biography by: Fadette Drouard