Julie Bertuccelli

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Born in 1968, Julie Bertucelli, studied philosophy before being trained as a documentary filmmaker at the Ateliers Varan in Paris. First assistant to such famed directors as Otar Iosseliani, Rithy Panh, René Féret, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Emmanuel Finkiel or Bertrand Tavernier, Julie Bertuccelli started directing her own films in 1993. Mainly a documentarist, she is the author of over a dozen works where she proves an acute - but also a most humane - observer of French society. The high quality of her documentaries has soon been acknowledged and rewarded, for instance by the Patrimoine Prize for La fabrique des juges ou les règles du jeu (1998). Three of her non-fiction movies are particularly remarkable, "Bienvenue au Grand Magasin", a chronicle of the everyday life at the Galeries Lafayette, the Paris department store (1999); "Le merle siffleur", a wonderfully lively portrait of her master, Otar Iosseliani; and "La cour de Babel" (2013), a heartwarming (but in no way goody-goody) report on a classe d'accueil, a class in which new-coming teenage students from all over the world are gathered to improve their mastery of French and - mainly - to help them become integrated into French society. A masterpiece in its genre. But Julie Bertuccelli has more than one string to her bow. "Since Otar Left", her first feature fiction film, won the Grand Jury Prize of the Critic's week at Cannes in 2003, and The Tree, shot in Australie, was Official Selection in Cannes 2010.