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Catherine Breillat

Dubbed "the bad girl intellectual of French cinema" by Amy Taubin of the Village Voice, writer-director Catherine Breillat seemingly has courted controversy since her career began. While still in her teens, she published her first novel, the erotic "L'Homme facile," which was not sold to anyone in France under 18 years of age. Breillat's film acting debut was alongside her sister Marie-Helene in 1973's frank and groundbreaking "Last Tango in Paris," helmed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Her own feature directorial debut based on one of her novels, "Une Vraie jeune fille," was originally shot in 1975 but through a combination of the bankruptcy of her producers and its shocking content that caused it to be banned, the film did not receive a release for 25 years. As with several of her works, "Une Vraie jeune fille" centered on the sexual coming of age of a woman -- here a 14-year-old boarding school student. Over the next decade, Breillat continued to make her mark as both a fiction writer and in films. She penned the story for and contributed to the script of "Police" (1985), a cop drama-cum-romance starring Gerard Depardieu and Sophie Marceau.