No Rest for the Brave

Alain Guiraudie, born July 15 1964 in Villefranche-de-Rouergue (Aveyron), is an actor, director and writer.

Born into a farming family, he developed a passion for very young folk culture. In 1990, he directed his first short film, Heroes Never Die.
In a style picaresque and the tone of the tale, he strives to represent the working class in the film That Old Dream That Moves, winner Prix Jean Vigo and presented in 2001 at the Directors Fortnight. Jean-Luc Godard spoke on this occasion that it was the “Best Film at Festival de Cannes.” Alain Guiraudie then passes to feature film, and is still filming in the Southwest.

“When I was an adolescent I thought about going into movies, but it seemed difficult to achieve. After high school, I almost tried applying to L’IDHEC, [Ed.- French film school], but I didn’t feel capable of getting in. Afterwards I wrote a few bad novels. One day I wrote something really shitty and poorly defined, something between a short story, a short play and a film script. I sent it to a producer who didn’t want to produce it but found it interesting and encouraged me to direct it. I got a subsidy and produced it on my own. I didn’t know anything. Heroes Never Die was a real learning experience and more than anything else made me want to make another film. I was a night watchman at that time and I kept doing little jobs while I made these little short films. One day I decided I wanted to go beyond the 15-minute time frame and made Sunshine for the Scoundrels. At that moment I worked as an assistant studio manager on TV films, which helped me to develop an eye for production and integrate that into my work as a director. Sunshine for the Scoundrels was an ambitious project. We only had five days of shooting under low budget conditions but the resulting film was more of a feature than a short. After that I met Paulo Films and we decided to collaborate on the next project, That Old Dream That Moves, another medium length film. It was presented in the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes 2001. Both films had quite successful festival careers and were theatrically released in France."