Cédric Klapisch

Who is Cédric Klapisch?

Cédric Klapisch, is a French film director.

Klapisch was born at Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine. He is from a Jewish family; his maternal grandparents were deported to Auschwitz. He studied cinema at the University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle as well as at the University of Paris VIII. He was rejected on two occasions by the prestigious French film school IDHEC, now known as La fémis. He later attended the film school at New York University from 1983 to 1985. During the 1980s, he started to shoot short films such as In transit or Ce qui me meut. He subsequently worked as a scriptwriter and he became a director for feature films. He has also directed a nature documentary for French television.

In 1992, Klapisch shot his first feature film, Riens du tout. One year later, a TV channel asked him to make a film about high school life, set in 1975, Le péril jeune. The film had a very small budget and featured Romain Duris and Vincent Elbaz, who would become two of his favourite actors. Due to its success when broadcast on TV, the film was released in the theaters two years later. During the 1990s, Klapisch made three short films to encourage the use of condoms in combatting AIDS: La chambre, Le Poisson Rouge and Le Ramoneur des Lilas.