Biography: life and films
Mathieu Kassovitz is a French film actor, film director, screenwriter and film producer.
He was born in Paris, France on 3 August 1967.
Son of the filmmaker Peter Kassovitz and film editor Chantal
Rémy, Mathieu Kassovitz began his career by making short films
inspired by the work of Spike Lee. His feature debut
Métisse
(1993) attracted favourable criticism but it was his next film, the
gritty urban drama
La Haine (1995), that brought
him national and international fame. A sobering but accurate
portrait of racial tensions in present day France,
La Haine won Kassovitz the Best
Director award at Cannes in 1995 and won the Best Film César in
1996. Kassovitz's follow-up film,
Assassin(s),
in which he starred opposite Michel Serrault, had less impact outside
France but contributed to the debate over the extent to which violence
in society is caused by that depicted on television and cinema
screens. Kassovitz's next international success was the gory
policier
Les Rivières pourpres,
followed by the fantasy thriller
Gothika,
his first flirtation with Hollywood. The latter allowed him to
make the sci-fi thriller
Babylon A.D.
(2008), his most ambitious film. By this time, Kassovitz was also
well-established as an actor. He had won the Most Promising Actor
César in 1995 for his role in Jacques Audiard's
Regarde les hommes tomber
(1994) and garnered further acclaim for his performances in Audiard's
Un héros très discret
(1996) and Costa-Gavras's
Amen. (2002).
© James Travers 2013
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Filmography
Key: a = actor; d = director; w = writer
Au bout du bout du banc (1979) [a]
L'Année prochaine... si tout va bien (1981) [a]
Fierrot le pou (1990) [a,d,w]
Un été sans histoires (1992) [a]
Métisse (1993) [a,d,w]
3000 scénarios contre un virus (1994) [a]
Regarde les hommes tomber (1994) [a]
La Haine (1995) [d,w]
Des nouvelles du bon Dieu (1996) [a]
Mon homme (1996) [a]
Un héros très discret (1996) [a]
Assassin(s) (1997) [a,d,w]
The Fifth Element (1997) [a]
Le Plaisir et ses petits tracas (1998) [a]
Jakob the Liar (1999) [a]
Les Rivières pourpres (2000) [d,w]
Birthday Girl (2001) [a]
Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) [a]
Amen. (2002) [a]
Gothika (2003) [d]
Munich (2005) [a]
Avida (2006) [a]
Babylon A.D. (2008) [d,w]
Louise-Michel (2008) [a]
Haywire (2011) [a]
L'Ordre et la morale (2011) [a,d,w]
La Vie d'une autre (2012) [a]
Le Guetteur (2012) [a]
Angélique (2013) [a]
Un illustre inconnu (2014) [a]
Vie sauvage (2014) [a]
Le Gang des Antillais (2016) [a]
De plus belle (2017) [a]
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) [a]
Happy End (2017) [a]
