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Mia Hansen-Løve (born 5 February 1981) is a French film director, screenwriter, and former actress. She has won several accolades for her work. Her first feature film, '' All Is Forgiven'', won the
Louis Delluc Prize The Louis Delluc Prize ( ) is a French film award presented annually since 1937. The award is bestowed to the Best Film and Best First Film of the year on the second week of each December. The jury is composed of 20 members, consisting of a group ...
for Best First Film in 2007 along with Céline Sciamma's '' Water Lilies''. Hansen-Løve's film '' Father of My Children'' won the Special Jury Prize in the
Un Certain Regard (; 'A Certain Glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films with unusua ...
section at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. In 2014, Hansen-Løve was awarded the status of Chevalier in the
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres The Order of Arts and Letters () is an order of France established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture. Its supplementary status to the was confirmed by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Its purpose is the recognition of significant ...
. In 2016, she won the
Silver Bear for Best Director The Silver Bear for Best Director () is an award presented annually at the Berlin International Film Festival since 1956. It is given for the best achievement in directing and is chosen by the International Jury from the films in the Competition ...
for her film '' Things to Come'' at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival, as well as becoming a member of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., with the stated goal of adva ...
.


Early life

Hansen-Løve was born on 5 February 1981 in Paris. Her parents, Laurence and Ole Hansen-Løve, are both philosophy professors who separated when Hansen-Løve was in her 20s. She inherited her double-barrelled Danish family name from her paternal grandfather, who had immigrated to France from Denmark. At university, Hansen-Løve studied German and minored in philosophy. As a teenager, Hansen-Løve enjoyed acting and appeared in '' Late August, Early September'' and '' Sentimental Destinies'', both directed by Olivier Assayas. In 2001, she began studying at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Paris, but left in 2003 and began writing reviews for French film magazine '' Cahiers du cinéma'' until 2005, a job that fueled her desire to make films. "What I wanted s a Cahiers criticwas to build little-by-little a cinematic train of thought," she has said. Hansen-Løve says she is not nostalgic about her time at ''Cahiers du cinéma'', however useful it was, and that she experienced misogyny there. Meanwhile, she directed several shorts, including ''Contre-coup'' (2005), starring Louis Garrel and Lolita Chammah. In 2016, Hansen-Løve said, "When I was in my 20s, I was completely lost in life. Realizing I wanted to make films gave me strength. Because filmmaking is a perpetual questioning of existence: What is beauty? Why am I living? And I need that, I think, perhaps because of being the daughter of two philosophy teachers."


Career

Hansen-Løve's debut film, '' All Is Forgiven'', was nominated for a César Award for Best First Feature Film in 2008 by the French Film Academy. Her second film, '' Father of My Children'', premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival in the
Un Certain Regard (; 'A Certain Glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films with unusua ...
section, winning the Special Jury Prize. The film was inspired by the suicide of Humbert Balsan, a French actor and film producer who served as an early mentor for Hansen-Løve. Her third feature was the semi-autobiographical '' Goodbye First Love''. Hansen-Løve cast Lola Créton after seeing her in ''
Bluebeard "Bluebeard" ( ) is a French Folklore, folktale, the most famous surviving version of which was written by Charles Perrault and first published by Barbin in Paris in 1697 in . The tale is about a wealthy man in the habit of murdering his wives an ...
''. Her then-partner, Olivier Assayas, who was with her at the time of the viewing, subsequently cast Créton in one of his films. The film premiered at the 2011
Locarno International Film Festival The Locarno International Film Festival is a major international film festival, held annually in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narr ...
, where it received a special mention from the Jury. In August 2012, TIFF Cinemathique presented a retrospective of Hansen-Løve's work titled "Fathers and Daughters: The Films of Mia Hansen-Løve." In November 2013, Hansen-Løve began filming '' Eden'', an autobiographical drama about a young man who discovers the burgeoning
French house French house (also referred to as French touch, filter house, or tekfunk) is a style of house music devised by French musicians in the 1990s. It is a form of Eurodisco and a popular strand of the late 1990s and 2000s European dance music s ...
music scene during the early 90s. The film was inspired and co-written by her brother Sven, who had been part of the 90s club scene as a DJ. Hansen-Løve went through multiple producers while trying to make the film, as obtaining the rights to the music she wanted to use was time-consuming and expensive. The film premiered at the
2014 Toronto International Film Festival The 39th annual Toronto International Film Festival, the 39th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held in Canada from 4–14 September 2014. David Dobkin (director), David Dobkin's film ''The Judge (2014 film), The Judg ...
. During promotion for '' Eden'', Hansen-Løve announced that her next film, '' Things to Come'' (''L'Avenir''), would star Isabelle Huppert as a philosophy teacher whose seemingly perfect life begins to fall apart when her husband leaves her and her children move away from home. Hansen-Løve cited Eric Rohmer's ''The Green Ray'' as the "one film hecouldn't help thinking of when writing ''Things to Come''" because of the similarities between the film's themes and their central female characters. The film was completed in 2016 and premiered in competition at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival, where Hansen-Løve won the
Silver Bear for Best Director The Silver Bear for Best Director () is an award presented annually at the Berlin International Film Festival since 1956. It is given for the best achievement in directing and is chosen by the International Jury from the films in the Competition ...
. In September 2018, Hansen-Løve premiered ''
Maya Maya may refer to: Ethnic groups * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (East Africa), a p ...
'' at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival as a part of the Special Presentations section. In May 2017, it was announced that Hansen-Løve would be making her English-language debut with '' Bergman Island''. Set on the Swedish island of
Fårö Fårö () or in Gutnish is a Baltic Sea island just north of the island of Gotland, itself off mainland Sweden's southeastern coast. It is the second-largest island in the county and it is a popular summer resort. It has its own language, Fårö ...
, the film illustrates a filmmaking couple who retreat to the island that inspired director
Ingmar Bergman Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film and theatre director and screenwriter. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential film directors of all time, his films have been described as "profoun ...
, residing there for the summer to each write screenplays for their upcoming films. The film was set to star Greta Gerwig, Mia Wasikowska, Anders Danielsen Lie and John Turturro, but in August 2018 it was announced that Vicky Krieps would replace Gerwig and Turturro would no longer star in the film. Production began in August 2018 and Tim Roth was later cast in the lead role. ''Bergman Island'' premiered at
Cannes Cannes (, ; , ; ) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a communes of France, commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions Internatio ...
in 2021, having been postponed from the cancelled 2020 edition of the festival. Hansen-Løve is also a screenwriter, having written the screenplays for all of her films. "I write all films by myself", she has said. "I really try to close a door and go inside myself to search for my own truth. It would be a limitation to stick to those cineastes that I look up to. What I admire in them is precisely their sense of independence, how they created their own language and how they plunged into themselves to make their own films."


Style and themes

Hansen-Løve's films mostly revolve around familial and romantic relationships and their effects. '' Eden, Father of My Children,'' and '' Things to Come'' all draw on important people or events in Hansen-Løve's life, though she has said that while all her films are personal, they are not autobiographical. ''Time Out'' writer Dave Calhoun describes Hansen-Løve's films as "intimate, realist, free of melodrama. They have a lightness of touch and yet feel wise." Hansen-Løve's brother, Sven, has said that she "prides herself on trueness and realism and authenticity." Eschewing shocking or dramatic events, Hansen-Løve rests her narratives on subtle emotional shifts; climactic moments occur naturally, with no prior indication. Common themes in Hansen-Løve's films are personal crisis, desire, and existentialism. Her films also tend to touch upon the generational effects of France's political and social history. Hansen-Løve's films have been compared to those of French auteur Eric Rohmer, whose work influenced her. Hansen-Løve has said that '' All Is Forgiven, Father of My Children,'' and '' Goodbye First Love'' are a loose trilogy about the transformations involved in transitioning to adulthood. “It’s not accidental that the daughters are all 15, 16, or 17 for the majority of each film,” she said. “It’s not only about the relationship between fathers and daughters, it’s about that particular age where you separate from your family and become an adult.”


Personal life

Hansen-Løve was in a relationship with director Olivier Assayas, who directed her in the films '' Late August, Early September'' and '' Sentimental Destinies'', from 2002 to 2017. Though it was widely assumed they were married, Hansen-Løve revealed after they split that they never had been. They have a daughter, Vicky, born in 2009. Hansen-Løve had a second child, a son with filmmaker Laurent Perreau, in 2020. Hansen-Løve is the younger sister of Sven Hansen-Løve, a successful DJ in the 90s and the inspiration for and co-writer of ''Eden''. Her cousin, Igor Hansen-Løve, is a '' L’Express'' journalist. He had a small role in her 2009 film '' Father of My Children''.


Filmography


Further reading

* Ince, Kate. 'Ethics, Gender and Vulnerability in the films of Mia Hansen-Løve', 'Film-Philosophy' 24: 2 (2020) * Ince, Kate. ''The Cinema of Mia Hansen-Løve: candour and vulnerability''. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021. * Palmer, Tim
"Contemporary Feminine French Cinema and Lucile Hadzihalilovic's 'Innocence'."
''The French Review'' 83, no. 2 (2009): 316–327. * Porton, Richard. "A Death in the Family: An Interview with Mia Hansen-Løve." ''Cineaste: America's Leading Magazine on the Art and Politics of the Cinema'' 35, no. 3 (2010): 10–14. * Porton, Richard. "Love, Work and Radical Ideals: An Interview with Mia Hansen-Løve." ''Cineaste: America's Leading Magazine on the Art and Politics of the Cinema'' 42, no. 2 (2017): 24–27. * Wilson, Emma. "Precarious Lives: On Girls in Mia Hansen-Løve and Others." ''Studies in French Cinema'' 12, no. 3 (2012): 273–284. *


References


External links

*
Mia Hansen-Løve’s 10 Favorite Films


Interviews


Interview: Mia Hansen-Løve, director of Goodbye First Love
on
Film Comment ''Film Comment'' is the official publication of Film at Lincoln Center. It features reviews and analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world. Founded in 1962 and originally released as a quarterly, ''Film ...

Why ‘Things to Come’ Filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve Refuses to Get Caught Up in Ideologies
on IndieWire
Interview: Mia Hansen-Løve
on ''Thing to Come'' on
Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New Yor ...

‘Eden’ Brilliantly Captures the Highs and Lows of the DJ Lifestyle in 90s Paris
on
Vice A vice is a practice, behaviour, Habit (psychology), habit or item generally considered morally wrong in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, an infirmity, or a bad or unhe ...


Reviews


Family Matters
on
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

Film of the month: Goodbye First Love
in Sight & Sound
Review: Eden
on
Film Comment ''Film Comment'' is the official publication of Film at Lincoln Center. It features reviews and analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world. Founded in 1962 and originally released as a quarterly, ''Film ...

‘Maya’ Review: Mia Hansen-Løve Goes to India for a Beguiling Story of Romance and Rootlessness TIFF
on IndieWire {{DEFAULTSORT:Hansen-Love, Mia 1981 births 20th-century French actresses 21st-century French actresses Living people Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Silver Bear for Best Director recipients Film directors from Paris French film actresses French film critics French people of Danish descent French women film directors French women screenwriters French screenwriters French women film critics Actresses from Paris