Biography
Anne Fontaine, born in Luxembourg in 1959, is a filmmaker and screenwriter who previously worked as an actor. She currently resides and works in France.
Originally named Fontaine Sibertin-Blanc, she is the sister of actor Jean-Chrétien Sibertin-Blanc. As a young child, she moved to Lisbon where her father, Antoine Sibertin-Blanc, served as a music professor and cathedral organist. During her teenage years, she relocated to Paris, studied dance under Joseph Russillo, and pursued academic studies including philosophy. She is married to film producer Philippe Carcassonne, and together they have an adopted son from Vietnam.
While still dancing, Robert Hossein cast her as Esmeralda in a 1980 stage production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, around when she began using the name Anne Fontaine. She continued acting, gaining recognition for her roles in comedies such as Si ma gueule vous plaît... (1981) and P.R.O.F.S. (1985). In 1986, she transitioned to assistant directing during a theatrical adaptation of Céline's Voyage au bout de la nuit (Journey to the End of the Night) at the Renaud-Barrault theatre.
Fontaine's directorial debut, Les histoires d'amour finissent mal... en général (Love Affairs Usually End Badly), earned the Prix Jean Vigo in 1993. In 1995, she collaborated with her brother on the comedy Augustin. Two years later, she wrote and directed the acclaimed Nettoyage à Sec (Dry Cleaning), which won Best Screenplay at the 1997 Venice Film Festival and marked a significant step in establishing her as a key figure in contemporary French cinema.
The character Augustin, played by Jean-Chrétien Sibertin-Blanc, returned in Fontaine's 1999 film Augustin, Roi Du Kung-Fu (Augustin, King of Kung-Fu). She followed with Comment j'ai tué mon père (How I Killed My Father) in 2001 and Nathalie... in 2003. Her 2005 film Entre Ses Mains (In His Hands) has been widely described as a thriller, with Fontaine herself calling it an "intimate thriller." A third Augustin installment, Nouvelle chance (also known as Oh La La), was released in 2006, followed by La fille de Monaco (The Girl From Monaco) in 2008 and the 2009 biopic Coco avant Chanel (Coco Before Chanel).
Fontaine's films defy easy categorization, though they are often described as psychological dramas. She has explained to a UK newspaper that she aims to explore her characters' unconscious aspects in a Freudian manner, probing "what are the things about themselves that they're unaware of?" She is intrigued by the irony of fate and the moments when life takes an unexpected turn, noting that all her stories contain an element of cruelty.
6 wins and 22 nominations
