Dardenne brothers


Brothers Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, collectively referred to as the Dardenne brothers, are a Belgian filmmaking duo. They write, produce, and direct their films together.
The Dardennes began making narrative and documentary films in the late 1970s. They came to international attention in the mid-1990s with La Promesse. They won their first major international film prize when Rosetta won the Palme d'Or at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. Their work tends to reflect left-wing themes and points-of-view.
In 2002, Olivier Gourmet won Best Actor at Cannes for the Dardennes' Le Fils. In 2005, they won the Palme d'Or a second time for their film L’Enfant, putting them in an elite club, at the time, of only seven. Their film, Le Silence de Lorna, won Best Screenplay at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and was released in Europe in the fall. Their film The Kid with a Bike won the Grand Prix at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, received one Golden Globe nomination and eight Magritte Award nominations. Jean-Pierre was the jury president for the Cinéfoundation and Short Films sections of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. In 2015, their film Deux jours, une nuit received nine Magritte Award nominations and one Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for Marion Cotillard. Their 2019 feature Young Ahmed won them the Best Director Award at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.

Career

Creators of intensely naturalistic films about working class life in Belgium, brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne have created a notable body of work since 1996. With La Promesse , Rosetta, Le Fils , and L'Enfant , the Dardennes’ films show young people at the fringes of society – immigrants, the unemployed, the inhabitants of shelters. Both Rosetta and L'Enfant were awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the only two Belgian films ever to earn the honor.
The Dardennes were born and raised in Seraing in Liege, in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium. Jean-Pierre studied drama while Luc studied philosophy. In 1975 they established Derives, the production company that produced the roughly sixty documentary films they made before branching into feature films. These films covered such topics as Polish immigration, World War II resistance, a general strike in 1960. Their first two feature films, however, are rarely seen today: Falsch adapted from René Kalisky, featuring Bruno Cremer and Je pense a vous.
The Dardennes had their first international success with La Promesse in 1996.
With Rosetta the Dardennes turned their focus to the burdens – philosophical, spiritual, psychological – of unemployment. Émilie Dequenne, who had not acted in film before, and was awarded the Best Actress Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, is the title character, a young woman living with her alcoholic mother in a trailer park. The film is about Rosetta's search for purpose and to Rosetta purpose can only be found through work – she makes her way through Seraing's fringes for the most menial of positions; she catches fish in the muddy, murky stream by her trailer park. Rosetta was the first Belgian film ever to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes, coming in ahead of films by David Lynch, Pedro Almodóvar, Takeshi Kitano, and Raoul Ruiz. The film provided some impetus for a labor law designed to protect young workers like Rosetta shortly after the film's release. "’t was pure chance,’ Jean-Pierre insists. ‘There was already a bill going through, and the minister took advantage of our award to call it the Rosetta Law. But we never intended to get laws changed.’ Luc adds: ‘Of course, we always hope our films will speak to people, disturb them, but we never hoped to change the world’."
Crimes and occupations again figure prominently in the Dardennes’ fourth film, L’Enfant. The film earned the Dardennes the Palme d'Or from Cannes, their second in seven years. L'Enfant won the André Cavens Award in 2005, making directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne fourth-time winners of the award.
The Dardenne brothers have a regular stable of collaborators, including cinematographer Alain Marcoen and editor Marie-Hélène Dozo. Jérémie Renier played Igor in La Promesse, Bruno in L’Enfant, Claudy in Le Silence de Lorna, Guy in Le gamin au vélo, and Bryan's father in The Unknown Girl. Olivier Gourmet, the main character of Le fils, has a brief cameo as a detective in L’Enfant. Like Rosetta's Emilie Dequenne, Déborah François, the seventeen-year-old lead in L’Enfant, was appearing in her first film. Luc Dardenne has described their process of working with actors as follows: "What we do with the actors is also very physical. The day filming begins we do not feel obliged to do things exactly the way they were rehearsed; we pretend that we are starting over from zero so that we can rediscover things that we did before. The instructions we give the actors are above all physical. We start working without the cameraman—just the actors and my brother and me. We walk them through the blocking, first one then the other, trying several different versions. They say but do not act their lines. We do not tell them what the tone of their lines should be; we just say that we will see once the camera is rolling. At this point there is no cameraman, no sound engineer, no lighting. Then we set up all the camera movements exactly and the rhythm of the shot, which is usually a long take. Doing it this way allows us the ability to modify the actors’ movements or any small details."
The Dardennes often employ handheld cameras and use available light. In June 2012, the brothers were invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Their 2014 film Two Days, One Night was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. The film received nine nominations at the 5th Magritte Awards, winning three, including Best Film and Best Director. Marion Cotillard received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance in the film, the first Oscar nomination for a Dardenne brothers film.
In 2016 they premiered The Unknown Girl, starring Adèle Haenel as a young doctor who lets the door buzzer of her small clinic go unanswered one evening after work hours and then grows determined to discover the identity of the young woman found dead nearby when the police see from a security tape that she had been the person ringing at the door.
Their most recent feature is Young Ahmed, a film about a Belgian teenager embracing Islamic extremism.

Filmography

Features

Documentaries

Shorts

Honours

[BAFTA Awards]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
2015Two Days, One NightBest Film Not in the English Language

[Belgian Film Critics Association]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
1996La PromesseAndré Cavens Award
1997La PromesseGrand Prix
1999RosettaAndré Cavens Award
2002The SonAndré Cavens Award
2005L'EnfantAndré Cavens Award
2014Two Days, One NightAndré Cavens Award

[Bodil Awards]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
2007L'EnfantBest Non-American Film
2015Two Days, One NightBest Non-American Film

[Cannes Film Festival]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
1999RosettaPalme d'Or
1999RosettaPrize of the Ecumenical Jury
2002The SonPalme d'Or
2002The SonPrize of the Ecumenical Jury
2005L'EnfantPalme d'Or
2008Lorna's SilencePalme d'Or
2008Lorna's SilenceBest Screenplay
2011The Kid with a BikePalme d'Or
2011The Kid with a BikeGrand Prix
2014Two Days, One NightPalme d'Or
2014Two Days, One NightPrize of the Ecumenical Jury
2016The Unknown GirlPalme d'Or
2019Young AhmedPalme d'Or
2019Young AhmedBest Director Award

[César Awards]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
1997La PromesseBest Foreign Film
2006L'EnfantBest Film
2006L'EnfantBest Director
2006L'EnfantBest Original Screenplay
2009Lorna's SilenceBest Foreign Film
2012The Kid with a BikeBest Foreign Film
2015Two Days, One NightBest Foreign Film

[David di Donatello]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
2006L'EnfantBest European Film

[European Film Awards]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
1997Gigi, Monica... et BiancaBest Documentary
1999RosettaBest Film
2002The SonBest Director
2005L'EnfantBest Film
2006L'EnfantPeople's Choice Award for Best European Film
2011The Kid with a BikeBest Film
2011The Kid with a BikeBest Director
2011The Kid with a BikeBest Screenwriter
2014Two Days, One NightBest Screenwriter
2014Two Days, One NightPeople's Choice Award for Best European Film

[Globes de Cristal Award]s

YearNominated workCategoryResult
2015Two Days, One NightBest Film

[Golden Globe Awards]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
2012The Kid with a BikeBest Foreign Language Film

[Gopo Awards]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
2007L'EnfantBest European Film
2010Lorna's SilenceBest European Film
2013The Kid with a BikeBest European Film

[Guldbagge Awards]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
2006L'EnfantBest Foreign Film
2015Two Days, One NightBest Foreign Film

[Joseph Plateau Awards]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
1997La PromesseBest Belgian Director
1999La PromesseBest Belgian Screenplay 1984–1999
2000RosettaBest Belgian Director
2003The SonBest Belgian Director
2003The SonBest Belgian Screenplay
2006L'EnfantBest Belgian Director
2006L'EnfantBest Belgian Screenplay

[Independent Spirit Awards]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
2000RosettaBest International Film
2012The Kid with a BikeBest International Film

[Lumières Awards]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
2003The SonBest French-Language Film
2006L'EnfantBest French-Language Film
2009Lorna's SilenceBest French-Language Film
2015Two Days, One NightBest French-Language Film

[Lux Prize]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
2008Lorna's Silence

[Magritte Awards]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
2012The Kid with a BikeBest Film
2012The Kid with a BikeBest Director
2012The Kid with a BikeBest Screenplay
2015Two Days, One NightBest Film
2015Two Days, One NightBest Director
2015Two Days, One NightBest Screenplay
2020Young AhmedBest Film
2020Young AhmedBest Director
2020Young AhmedBest Screenplay

[Robert Awards]

YearNominated workCategoryResult
2013The Kid with a BikeBest Non-American Film
2015Two Days, One NightBest Non-American Film

Other organisation awards

Other festival awards