Description: Trần Anh Hùng is a Vietnamese-born French film director and screenwriter. Hùng has been at the forefront of a wave of acclaimed overseas Vietnamese cinema over the past two decades. His films have received international fame and acclaim, and his first three features were varied meditations on life in his home country Vietnam. Hùng's Oscar-nominated debut (for Best foreign film) was The Scent of Green Papaya (1993), which also won two top prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. His follow-up Cyclo (1995, which featured Hong Kong movie star Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), won the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival. The Vertical Ray of the Sun, released in 2000, was the third film in his "Vietnam trilogy."
Description: Lynne Ramsay is a Scottish film director, writer, producer, and cinematographer best known for the feature films Ratcatcher (1999), Morvern Callar (2002), We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), and You Were Never Really Here (2017). Her films are marked by a fascination with children and young people and the recurring themes of grief, guilt, death, and its aftermath. They are low on dialogue and explicit story exposition, and instead use images, vivid details, music, and sound design to create their worlds. In April 2013 she was selected as a member of the main competition jury at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. In 2015, she was named as a member of the jury for the main competition at the 2015 Venice Film Festival.
Description: Kleber Mendonça Filho is a Brazilian film director, screenwriter, producer, and critic. O Som ao Redor (Neighbouring Sounds, 2013) was Mendonça's first feature-length drama, winning numerous awards. Film critic AO Scott of The New York Times included it in his list of the 10 best films of 2012. Caetano Veloso, in his column in the newspaper O Globo, classified it as "one of the best movies made recently in the world ". The critic Lucas Salgado of AdoroCinema website, gave the film a score of 5 out of 5, writing, "The film talks in a subtle way and uses sound so rarely seen in world cinema."
Description: Paul Thomas Anderson is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He developed an interest in filmmaking from a young age. He made his feature-film debut with Hard Eight (1996). He found critical and commercial success with Boogie Nights (1997), set in the Golden Age of Porn, and received further accolades with Magnolia (1999), an ensemble piece set in the San Fernando Valley, and Punch-Drunk Love (2002), a romantic comedy film.
Description: David Cronenberg is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation, infection, technology, and the intertwining of the psychological with the physical. Cronenberg is best known for exploring these themes through sci-fi horror films such as Shivers (1975), Scanners (1981), Videodrome (1983), and The Fly (1986), though he has also worked in multiple genres throughout his career. Cronenberg's films have polarized critics and audiences alike; he has earned critical acclaim and has sparked controversy for his depictions of gore and violence.
Description: Kim Ki-duk was a South Korean film director and screenwriter, noted for his idiosyncratic art-house cinematic works. His major festival awards include the Golden Lion at 69th Venice International Film Festival for Pietà, a Silver Lion for Best Director at 61st Venice International Film Festival for 3-Iron, a Silver bear for Best Director at 54th Berlin International Film Festival for Samaritan Girl, and the Un Certain Regard prize at 2011 Cannes Film Festival for Arirang. His most widely known feature is Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003), included in film critic Roger Ebert's Great Movies. Two of his films served as official submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film as South Korean entries.
Description: Pedro Costa is a Portuguese film director. He collected the France Culture Award (Foreign Cineaste of the Year) at 2002 Cannes Film Festival for directing the film In Vanda's Room. Colossal Youth was selected for the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and earned the Independent/Experimental prize (Los Angeles Film Critics Association) in 2008.
Description: Stan Brakhage was an American filmmaker. He is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th-century experimental film. Over the course of five decades, Brakhage created a large and diverse body of work, exploring a variety of formats, approaches and techniques that included handheld camerawork, painting directly onto celluloid, fast cutting, in-camera editing, scratching on film, collage film and the use of multiple exposures. Interested in mythology and inspired by music, poetry, and visual phenomena, Brakhage sought to reveal the universal, in particular exploring themes of birth, mortality, sexuality, and innocence. His films are for the most part silent.
Description: Mohsen Makhmalbaf is an Iranian film director, writer, film editor, and producer. He has made more than 20 feature films, won some 50 awards and been a juror in more than 15 major film festivals. His award-winning films include Kandahar; his latest documentary is The Gardener and latest feature The President.
Description: Atom Egoyan is an Armenian-Canadian film and stage director, screenwriter, and producer. He was part of a loosely-affiliated group of filmmakers to emerge in the 1980s from Toronto known as the Toronto New Wave. Egoyan made his career breakthrough with Exotica (1994), a film set primarily in and around the fictional Exotica strip club. Egoyan's most critically acclaimed film is the drama The Sweet Hereafter (1997), for which he received two Academy Award nominations, and his biggest commercial success is the erotic thriller Chloe (2009). Egoyan is widely considered to be one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation.
Description: Theodoros "Theo" Angelopoulos was a Greek filmmaker, screenwriter and film producer. He dominated the Greek art film industry from 1975 on, Angelopoulos was one of the most influential and widely respected filmmakers in the world. He started making films in 1967. In the 1970s he made a series of political films about modern Greece. Angelopoulos' films, described by Martin Scorsese as that of "a masterful filmmaker", are characterized by the slightest movement, slightest change in distance, long takes, and complex, carefully composed scenes. His cinematic method is often described as "sweeping" and "hypnotic." In 1998 his film Eternity and a Day went on to win the Palme d'Or at the 51st edition of the Cannes Film Festival.
Description: Taika David Cohen known professionally as Taika Waititi, is a New Zealand film and television director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and comedian. He is a recipient of an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Grammy Award, and nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards. His feature films Boy (2010) and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) have each been the top-grossing New Zealand film.
Description: Chantal Anne Akerman was a Belgian film director, screenwriter, artist, and film professor at the City College of New York. She is best known for Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), which The New York Times called a "masterpiece". According to film scholar Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, Akerman's influence on feminist and avant-garde cinema is substantial.
Description: Agnès Varda was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter, photographer, and artist. Her pioneering work was central to the development of the widely influential French New Wave film movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Her films focused on achieving documentary realism, addressing women's issues, and other social commentary, with a distinctive experimental style.
Description: Lucrecia Martel is an Argentine film director, screenwriter and producer whose feature films have frequented Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Toronto, and many other international film festivals. Film scholar Paul Julian Smith wrote in 2015 that she is "arguably the most critically acclaimed auteur in Spanish-language art cinema outside Latin America" and that her "transnational auteurism and demanding features have earned her a hard-won reputation in the world art cinema festival circuit".
Description: Alain Resnais was a French film director and screenwriter whose career extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct a number of short films which included Night and Fog (1956), an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps.
Description: Zhang Yimou is a Chinese film director, producer, writer and actor, and former cinematographer. He is part of the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, having made his directorial debut in 1987 with Red Sorghum. Zhang has won numerous awards and recognitions, with three Academy Awards nominations for Best Foreign Language Film for Ju Dou in 1990, Raise the Red Lantern in 1991, and Hero in 2003; a Silver Lion, two Golden Lion prizes and the Glory to the Filmmaker Award at the Venice Film Festival; Grand Jury Prize, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and Technical Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival; the Golden Bear, the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Description: Yasujirō Ozu was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. He began his career during the era of silent films, and his last films were made in colour in the early 1960s. Ozu first made a number of short comedies, before turning to more serious themes in the 1930s. The most prominent themes of Ozu's work are marriage and family, especially the relationships between generations. His most widely beloved films include Late Spring (1949), Tokyo Story (1953), and An Autumn Afternoon (1962).
Description: Spike Lee is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and professor. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films since 1983. He made his directorial debut with She's Gotta Have It (1986). He has since written and directed such films as Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo' Better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Malcolm X (1992), Crooklyn (1994), Clockers (1995), 25th Hour (2002), Inside Man (2006), Chi-Raq (2015), BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Da 5 Bloods (2020). Lee also acted in ten of his films. Lee's work has continually explored race relations, colorism in the black community, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues.
Description: Wong Kar-wai is a Hong Kong film director, screenwriter, and producer. His films are characterised by nonlinear narratives, atmospheric music, and vivid cinematography involving bold, saturated colours. A pivotal figure of Hong Kong cinema, Wong is considered a contemporary auteur, and ranks third on Sight & Sound's 2002 poll of the greatest filmmakers of modern times. His films frequently appear on best-of lists domestically and internationally.
Description: Tsai Ming-liang is a Taiwanese filmmaker who has written and directed eleven feature films and has also directed many short films and television films. Tsai is one of the most celebrated "Second New Wave" film directors of Taiwanese cinema. His films have been acclaimed worldwide and have won numerous awards at film festivals. In 1994, he won the Golden Lion at the 51st Venice International Film Festival for the film Vive L'Amour. Tsai has been referred to as an auteur.
Description: Sean Baker is an American film director, cinematographer, producer, screenwriter and editor. He is best known for the independent feature films Starlet, Tangerine, and The Florida Project, as well as his involvement in the Fox/IFC puppet sitcom Greg the Bunny and its spin-offs. Baker has received several film critics awards, a Filmmaker on the Edge Award and nominations for six Independent Spirit Awards, winning one in 2012.
Description: Roy Andersson is a Swedish film director, best known for A Swedish Love Story (1970) and his "Living trilogy," which includes Songs from the Second Floor (2000), You, the Living (2007) and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014). Songs from the Second Floor, more than any other, cemented and exemplified his personal style – which is characterized by long takes, absurdist comedy, stiff caricaturing of Swedish culture and Felliniesque grotesque. He has spent much of his professional life working on advertisement spots, directing over 400 commercials and two short films; directing six feature-length films in six decades.
Description: Satoshi Kon was a Japanese film director, animator, screenwriter and manga artist from Sapporo, Hokkaidō and a member of the Japanese Animation Creators Association (JAniCA). Tsuyoshi Kon [ja], a guitarist, is his brother. He was a graduate of the Graphic Design department of the Musashino Art University. He is best known for his acclaimed anime films Perfect Blue (1997), Millennium Actress (2001), Tokyo Godfathers (2003), and Paprika (2006).
Description: Pedro Almodóvar is a Spanish film director, screenwriter, producer, and former actor. His films are marked by melodrama, irreverent humour, bold colour, glossy décor, quotations from popular culture, and complex narratives. Desire, passion, family, and identity are among Almodóvar's most prevalent subjects in his films. He is known for his collaborations with actors such as Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz. He came to prominence as a director and screenwriter during La Movida Madrileña, a cultural renaissance that followed after the end of Francoist Spain. His first few films characterised the sense of sexual and political freedom of the period.
Description: Satyajit Ray was an Indian film director, scriptwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and music composer. Ray is widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. He is celebrated for works such as The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959), The Music Room (1958), The Big City (1963) and Charulata (1964). Ray was born in Calcutta to renowned writer Sukumar Ray who was prominent in the field of arts and literature. Starting his career as a commercial artist, he was drawn into independent filmmaking after meeting French filmmaker Jean Renoir and viewing Vittorio De Sica's Italian neorealist film Bicycle Thieves (1948) during a visit to London.
Description: Rithy Panh is a Cambodian documentary film director and screenwriter. The French-schooled director's films focus on the aftermath of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. Rithy Panh's works are from an authoritative viewpoint, because his family were expelled from Phnom Penh in 1975 by the Khmer Rouge. One after another, his father, mother, sisters and nephews died of starvation or exhaustion, as they were held in a remote labor camp in rural Cambodia.
Description: Ousmane Sembène, often credited in the French style as Sembène Ousmane in articles and reference works, was a Senegalese film director, producer and writer. The Los Angeles Times considered him one of the greatest authors of Africa and he has often been called the "father of African film". Descended from a Serer family through his mother from the line of Matar Sène, Ousmane Sembène was particularly drawn to Serer religious festivals especially the Tuur festival.
Description: Milos Forman was a Czech-American film director, screenwriter, actor, and professor who rose to fame in his native Czechoslovakia before emigrating to the United States in 1968. Forman was an important figure in the Czechoslovak New Wave. Film scholars and Czechoslovakian authorities saw his 1967 film The Firemen's Ball as a biting satire on Eastern European Communism, and it was banned for many years in his home country[citation needed]. He left Czechoslovakia for the United States, where he gained critical and financial success. In 1975, he directed One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) starring Jack Nicholson as a patient in a mental institution.
