M+ Cinema’s first auteur-centric programme celebrates the illustrious career of French filmmaker Claire Denis. In the past thirty years and through her diverse body of work, Denis’s films have delved into the mystifying desires of the human heart and the ubiquitous impact of colonialism. Her elliptical storytelling and mood-inducing images evoke our innermost primal instincts and reveal marks left on the human psyche by sociocultural developments. Whether portraying the unadulterated beauty of human connection in Chocolat (1988) and 35 Shots of Rum (2008) or grappling with our destructive tendencies in Bastards (2013) and Trouble Every Day (2001), Denis takes audiences to places where few filmmakers would dare.

M+ co-presents ‘Fever Dreams: The Cinema of Claire Denis’ with Alliance Française as part of the 2022 Hong Kong French Film Festival.

Claire Denis (b. 1946, France) began her career working on set in Dusan Makavejev's Sweet Movie (1974). Her years working alongside Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch were crucial to her growth as a filmmaker before she directed her debut Chocolat (1988). Her next films I Can’t Sleep (1994) and Nénette et Boni (1996) interweave narratives inspired by the urban culture of Paris. Denis’s elliptical narrative and visual style received widespread acclaim with Beau Travail (1999) while Trouble Every Day (2001) made a shocking presentation in which Denis, regarded as an arthouse director, turned to the horror genre. The 2000s were significant for her career, which saw the release of Friday Night (2002), 35 Shots of Rum (2008), and White Material (2009). In 2022, Both Sides of the Blade and Stars at Noon won prizes at the Berlinale and Cannes respectively. Working closely with her long-time collaborators, such as cinematographer Agnès Godard and the rock band Tindersticks, Denis has contributed a diverse body of work to contemporary cinema.