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Bertrand Bonello

Born in the picturesque landscape of Nice, France, Bertrand Bonello began his career not as a filmmaker, but as a musician. Bonello entered the business with a classical background, having begun playing the piano at the age of five. By his adult life, he was fronting the underground rock band Coven, and working with major names in the French pop world, including the legendary Françoise Hardy. By the mid-'90s, however, Bonello was ready for a change. He entered the film industry with the short "Qui je suis" (1996). Soon, he was jumping in completely with the full-length feature "Something Organic" (1998). Before long, Bonello's films were competing in the prestigious lineups of the Cannes Film Festival. His controversial drama "The Pornographer" (2001) won Cannes' International Critics Week Prize, and he was at the festival promoting the Palme d'Or nominated "Tiresia" (2003) when his daughter Anna Mouchette was born to his wife, cinematographer Josée Deshaies. Critics associated Bonello's arch themes and jarring filmmaking techniques with the New French Extremity movement, and he would continue pushing the boundaries throughout his increasingly high-profile career. He received greater exposure than ever with his conceptual biopic of French designer Yves Saint Laurent, "Saint Laurent" (2014), a film that found him working with a bigger budget than he ever had before.