Bertrand Bonello
Bertrand Bonello (born 1968) is a French filmmaker, screenwriter, and composer whose work moves freely between historical reconstruction, political allegory, and pop. Born in Nice, he trained as a classical pianist and played in pop and punk bands before turning to film in the late 1990s with the New French Extremity-adjacent Something Organic and the controversial The Pornographer (2001) starring Jean-Pierre Léaud. He gained wider international recognition with House of Tolerance (2011), a hothouse evocation of fin-de-siècle Parisian brothel life that competed for the Palme d'Or, and the two-part biopic Saint Laurent (2014), which earned ten César nominations and was France's Oscar submission. He has since made Nocturama (2016), Zombi Child, Coma, and the Henry James-derived sci-fi The Beast (2023). He was named a Knight of France's Order of Arts and Letters in 2015.