- Born
- Birth nameAbdellatif Kechiche
- Abdellatif Kechiche was born on December 7, 1960 in Tunis, Tunisia. He is a writer and director, known for Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013), Games of Love and Chance (2003) and The Secret of the Grain (2007).
- Frequently casts amateur actors
- Films with long running times
- Use of close-ups and long takes
- Is influenced by Yasujirô Ozu's films.
- Received the Médaille Charlemagne pour les Médias Européens, an award for achievements in integration, together with Fatih Akin (2008).
- After his family emigrated from Tunisia to France in 1966, he grew up in Nice.
- Member of the 'Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' (AMPAS) since 2016.
- Made his stage debut at the Arènes de Cimiez (1978).
- [on his cinema] I don't want it to look like life. I want it to actually be life. Real moments of life, that's what I'm after.
- [on the making of Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013)] I never showed anyone a lack of respect. I might have shouted sometimes because I thought I'd get somewhere by raising my voice - but I never called anyone names. Either you want to make something that's prefabricated, mapped out, pre-programmed - or you see cinema as a real opportunity to create, like painting or literature. I'm just normally demanding. In France, you'd say extremely demanding. Because we French spend our time whingeing and moaning. In any other country, I'd be considered perfectly normal when it comes to work.
- [on Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013)] My aim was to let my intuition guide me so that these two people would not be seen as two women, but just two people. Very quickly I forgot the fact that these were two women, just as the crew and everyone else involved in the creation of this film forgot that aspect of it. It was really a film about two people having to go through a relationship which everyone knew would lead to a breakup and the pain that that entails. Anybody can see that story, what leads to that, and identify with it. As a filmmaker, I wanted to construct this identification process with the characters so that you fully connect to their emotions and what their breakup represents. I was taken aback to what degree the film ended up being about suffering and pain. I had started out with the intent to make a love story and something not so grave or so dark. But it really became about that, about the suffering of this breakup. My previous film, Black Venus (2010), had been very emotionally draining and difficult because I had identified so much with the lead character. So I went into this saying, "I want to do a love story, not to be seen with rose-colored glasses, but not as heavy." As it turned out, it surprised me the place where it led actually was something so painful. I identified so much with them that I experienced a lot of that suffering as well.
- [2013 interview on Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013)] I'm very upset that Léa Seydoux doesn't want to work with me again, it was such a dream for me to work with her. No, but really, it was good that Léa realised that she couldn't work with me again, and that she came right out and said it. As for Adèle [Adèle Exarchopoulos], that wasn't so great a dream for me as working with Léa. She's still young. I'll wait and see how she evolves as an actor and as a personality. Because you can get lost in that profession, and I hope she doesn't.
- [on Black Venus (2010)] I really felt it was the film of my life, and it didn't come off.
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