Her artistic debut dates back to the ‘80s, when she directed several short films for TV and worked as an assistant to Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders, Jacques Rivette and Costa-Gavras. One of her most important works to date is the feature Chocolat (1988), an evocation of her childhood in Cameroon and a film that combines European culture and African traditions; an intense and exciting film that explores everyday life and captivates the audience for the fluidity of the story.

1990 is the year of No Fear, No Fie (S’en fout la mort), the story of the friendship between the African Dah and the Martinican Jocelyn; an explosion of emotions, interracial tensions and family conflicts, a common theme in her art. Her films penetrate under the skin, in a contemporary, yet timeless, anthropological exploration of feelings.

In 1994, Claire Denis, is awarded a prize at the Festival of Turin for U.S. Go Home, an episode of the series Tous les garçon et les filles de leur âge..., produced by ARTE. In the same year she makes J’ai pas sommeil, an urban fresco of three people that lose their way, are excluded from society and immersed in a deafening indifference. A tough Marseilles, imbued with the strong colors of the Mediterranean, is the backdrop for Nénette and Boni (1996), a sensual portrait that examines bodies and faces.

Based on Herman Melville’s novel “Billy Budd” in 1999 she makes Beau travail, a film that sets aside the traditional rules of storytelling and stages a soul drama: the seduction/repulsion relationship between two French legionnaires stationed in the Gulf of Djibouti. Another adaptation from the novel “The Intruder” by Jean-Luc Nancy is the film L’intrus (2004, in competition at the Venice Film Festival): a reflection on identity and non-involvedness, an initiatory journey in search of a painful past, a thriller and a journey between film noir and research cinema (the quotes and the main character Michel Subari go to Reflux, the only film directed by the “cursed” scriptwriter of the Nouvelle Vague, Paul Gégauff).

The reference to the genera were already present in Trouble Every Day (2001, awarded a prize at the Cannes Film Festival), a horror film in which the theme of cannibalism lends itself to a reflection on love that “devours” the soul and flesh and on ghosts that evoke discomfort to be forgotten. At this point, a crucial moment in her film production, she begins to collaborate once again with the Tindersticks, with whom she had worked before on Nénette and Boni. In Vendredi soir (2003) a sudden passion is the subject of a shocking exploration, in a flow of close-up shots, bodies, and silences.

35 Shots of Rum (2008) is the most loved and applauded film at the Venice Film Festival. Presented out of competition, the film is a sort of return to her roots: it is the story of the strong bond between father and daughter after the death of the mother. Loneliness that fills voids, blood ties that are difficult to give up, precarious balances such as those between North and South. Reality opens its doors exposing itself to the viewer.

In White Material (2009), a film based on the novel by Doris Lessing “The Grass Is Singing” and in competition at Venice, childhood memories are once again evoked. The protagonist, Maria (Isabelle Huppert), is a courageous and stubborn woman living in Cameroon, in a world that is falling apart and is torn by post-colonial power; a political and personal resistance that isolates the bodies in the space of a frame, and brings them in touch with Nature.