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Jean-Claude Carrière

Jean-Claude Carrière, scriptwriter (France)

"A script is considered good when a good movie is born out of it. Once the film is ready, the script is gone. It is beyond any doubt the thing that is less discernible in the completed film," Jean-Claude Carrière, one of the greatest film writers ever, once wrote.

Nearly 130 feature, TV films and series have been made based on Carrière's scripts. In his lifetime he has worked with many acclaimed directors, such as Jacques Tati, Louis Malle, Pierre Etaix, Volker Schlöndorff, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Patrice Chéreau, Jean-Luc Godard, Carlos Saura and Andrzej Wajda. For almost 30 years he has been a close friend, fellow artist and right-hand man to theatre director Peter Brook. Jean-Claude Carrière has written 11 books, and has acted in a dozen roles. Among his trophies stand out the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay shared with Pierre Etaix for Heureux Anniversaire (The Anniversary) (1962). In 1967 he received a Golden Lion in Venice for the screenplay of Belle de Jour (The Beauty of the Day), and an Academy Award nomination and a BAFTA win for Best Adapted Screenplay based on Milan Kundera's novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being in 1988. The film The Tin Drum based on his script won the Palme d’Or at the film festival in Cannes in 1979.

During his visit to Sofia Jean-Claude Carrière gave a master class for students, filmmakers and fans at Lumière Cinema Hall. Jean-Claude Carrière also took part in the Sofia Meetings programme, where he presented his latest project, The Petroff File, created together with Bulgarian-born director residing in France Georgi Balabanov.

Jean-Claude Carrière was awarded the Sofia Municipality award for outstanding achievements in world cinema in 2008.