Focus Features

Born in Paris in 1967, a year before the city was rocked by protests and revolution, François Ozon would continue that revolutionary spirit in a very different way. Interested in film from childhood, he was a voracious consumer of movies, a love that armed him well for getting his masters degree in cinema before moving on to FEMIS, France’s elite film school (where he came under the tutelage of Eric Rohmer). Immensely productive, Ozon made 14 short films, screened at festivals around the world, before two of his shorts––A Summer Dress and See the Sea––gained international attention. Ozon has gone on to be one of France’s talented and enigmatic auteurs. Shifting cinematic styles from film to film, he mix and matches elements of mystery (8 Women, Swimming Pool), musicals (8 Women, Water Drops on Burning Rocks), and melodrama (Criminal Lovers, Under the Sand) and cinematic influences (Rohmer, Fassbinder, Buñuel, Hitchcock, Sirk). Like the figures of the French New Wave who were popular at the time of his birth, Ozon has re-fashioned the elements of classical cinema to fit his unique vision––fashionable, unexpected, and a little bit queer.