Scripted by Claudel, the film centres on Alessandro is an Italian professor of baroque music living in Strasbourg with his daughter, Irina, 15, in mid-teenage crisis, and his brother Crampone, a delightfully eccentric anarchist who has repeatedly applied for refugee status ever since Berlusconi came to power. Alessandro sometimes feels like he’s raising two teenagers, but is unable to acknowledge the void of his own existence. In trying too hard to be a model father, he forgot to rebuild his love life, especially as he is surrounded by an offbeat group of friends who stop him from ever feeling lonely. But as his daughter discovers the thrill of first love, Alessandro’s life is unexpectedly and dramatically transformed…
Philippe Claudel (born February 2, 1962), is a French writer and film director.
Claudel was born in Dombasle-sur-Meurthe, Meurthe-et-Moselle. In addition to his writing, Claudel is a Professor of Literature at the University of Nancy.
He directed the 2008 film I’ve Loved You So Long (Il y a longtemps que je t’aime). Much admired, it won the 2009 BAFTA for the best film not in English.
After studying in Nancy, he remained there, and for eleven years worked as teacher in prisons. Contact with his students inspired short stories, novels and then screenplays. He has said that the experience made him give up his simple opinions about people, about guilt, about the necessity to judge others. “It’s clear to me now that it would have been impossible for me to write a novel like Brodeck’s Report or Grey Souls, to make a movie like I’ve Loved You So Long, if I hadn’t been in jail.”
His best-known work to date is the novel Les Âmes grises (Grey Souls), which won the… read more
