# Lucile Hadžihalilović

Lucile Emina Hadžihalilović (born 7 May 1961) is a French film director and screenwriter of Bosnian descent. She wrote and directed the short film La Bouche de Jean-Pierre (1996), and the feature films Innocence (2004), for which she became the first woman to win the Stockholm International Film Festival's Bronze Horse Award for Best Film, Evolution (2015) and Earwig (2021). Her fourth feature film, The Ice Tower, will be released in 2025.

## Early life and education

Hadžihalilović was born in Lyon, France on 7 May 1961, to Bosnian Yugoslav parents and grew up in Morocco until she was 17.
She studied art history and graduated from the prestigious French film school La Fémis (previously Institut des hautes études cinématographiques) in 1987 with the short film La Première Mort de Nono.

## Career
### 1986–1998: Early work

Hadžihalilović worked as an editor for a number of films before beginning her own projects. The first film she worked on was Sylvain Ledey's short Festin (1986), after which she edited Alain Bourges' 1991 documentary Horizons artificiels (Trois rêves d'architecture), which has been described as "three confrontations between the discourse on architecture and the architecture of speech." Soon after, she had begun her collaboration with Gaspar Noé and worked on his 1991 short Carne. In 1994, she worked on the short La Baigneuse by Joel Leberre. Hadžihalilović then both produced and edited Noe's feature-length sequel to Carne, 1998's I Stand Alone.
In the early 1990s, she began to collaborate with her husband, the Argentine filmmaker Gaspar Noé. She produced and edited Noé's short film Carne (1991) and its sequel, the feature-length I Stand Alone (1998), and together they formed the production company Les Cinémas de la Zone in 1991. Noé explained their coming together as business partners: "we discovered that we shared a desire to make films atypical and we decided together to create our own society, Les Cinémas de la Zone, in order to finance our projects." Hadžihalilović's first film after her graduation, La Bouche de Jean-Pierre (1996), was a result of this collaborative effort. Hadžihalilović wrote, edited, produced, and directed the film while Noé worked as the cinematographer. La Bouche de Jean-Pierre was shown during the Un Certain Regard panel at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as being selected for various other notable festivals throughout the world. Hadžihalilović also contributed to the screenplay of Noé's critically divisive Enter the Void (2009), and continued as a producer of Lux Æterna (2019) and Vortex (2021).
Hadžihalilović's first short feature after her graduating film was La Bouche de Jean-Pierre (1996). It is told through the eyes of a young girl, Mimi (Sandra Sammartino), whose mother had attempted suicide. Mimi is then relocated to live with her aunt (Denise Aron-Schropfer) and a man named Jean-Pierre (Michel Trillot). The film features child abuse, and ends with Mimi taking sleeping pills in an effort to copy her mother.
In 1998, Hadžihalilović made Good Boys Use Condoms, one of a series of erotic short films promoting condom use. Another in the series, Sodomites, was made by Noé.

### 2004–2015: Innocence and acclaim

In 2004, she released the critically acclaimed film Innocence, starring Marion Cotillard and Hélène de Fougerolles. The film was inspired by the 1903 novella Mine-Haha, or On the Bodily Education of Young Girls by German playwright Frank Wedekind. The film follows three young girls who attend a secluded mysterious boarding school and their interactions with their teachers (Cotillard and Fougerolles). She has commented on the film's similarity or references to Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977), and Victor Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive (1973).
Hadžihalilović released a short entitled Nectar in 2014, and the feature film Evolution in 2015. Evolution revolves around young boys who are subjected to mysterious treatments and live on an island inhabited solely by women and themselves.

### 2021–present: Established director

In 2021, Hadžihalilović released her first English-language feature, Earwig, about a girl whose teeth are made of ice, which won Special Jury Prize at San Sebastian Film Festival.
In June 2023, it was announced that Hadzihalilovic's next film will be The Ice Tower, starring Marion Cotillard, on their second collaboration after Innocence (2004). The film is expected to be released in 2025.
Hadžihalilović is a member of the French gender equality group Collectif 50/50, which aims to promote equality between women and men and diversity in cinema and audiovisual.

## Favourite films

In 2022, Hadžihalilović participated in the Sight & Sound film polls of that year. It is held every ten years to select the greatest films of all time, by asking contemporary directors to select ten films of their choice. Hadžihalilović selections were:
* 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
* Stalker (1979)
* Saikaku Ichidai Onna (1952)
* The Ascent (1977)
* Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
* The Red Shoes (1948)
* Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
* Tabu A Story of the South Seas (1931)
* Mamma Roma (1962)
* The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)

## Awards

| Year | Award | Category | Film | Result |
| 1996 | Amiens International Film Festival | OCIC Award | La bouche de Jean-Pierre | Won |
| 1996 | Avignon Film Festival | Prix SACD | La bouche de Jean-Pierre | Won |
| 1996 | Cannes Film Festival | Golden Camera | La bouche de Jean-Pierre | Nominated |
| 1997 | Angers European First Film Festival | Best Screenplay | La bouche de Jean-Pierre | Won |
| 1997 | Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival | National Competition | La bouche de Jean-Pierre | Won |
| 2004 | Stockholm International Film Festival | Bronze Horse | Innocence | Won |
| 2004 | San Sebastián International Film Festival | Best New Director | Innocence | Won |
| 2005 | Istanbul Film Festival | People's Choice Award -International Competition | Innocence | Won |
| 2005 | Istanbul Film Festival | FIPRESCI Prize - International Competition | Innocence | Won |
| 2005 | Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival | Narcisse Award - Best Feature Film | Innocence | Won |
| 2005 | Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival | Denis-de-Rougemont Youth Award | Innocence | Won |
| 2005 | Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival | Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Silver - Honorable Mention | Innocence | Won |
| 2005 | Jeonju Film Festival | Woosuk Award - Indie Vision | Innocence | Nominated |
| 2009 | Sundance Film Festival | NHK Award | Lucile Hadžihalilović | Won |
| 2014 | Côté Court Festival | Grand Prix - Fiction | Nectar | Nominated |
| 2014 | Festival International du Film Indépendant de Bordeaux | Grand Prize of the Jury - Short Prize | Nectar | Nominated |
| 2015 | London Film Festival | Best Film - Official Competition | Évolution | Nominated |
| 2015 | AFI Fest | Short Award - New Auteurs | Évolution | Nominated |
| 2015 | San Sebastián International Film Festival | Golden Seashell - Best Film | Évolution | Nominated |
| 2015 | San Sebastián International Film Festival | Special Prize of the Jury | Évolution | Won |
| 2015 | Stockholm International Film Festival | Bronze Horse - Best Film | Évolution | Nominated |
| 2015 | TheWIFTS Foundation International Visionary Awards | The Adrienne Fancey Award - Best Film | Évolution | Won |
| 2016 | Istanbul Film Festival | Audentia Award | Évolution | Nominated |
| 2016 | Athens International Film Festival | Golden Athena - Best Picture | Évolution | Nominated |
| 2016 | Dublin Film Critics Circle Awards | DFCC - Best Director | Évolution | Nominated |
| 2016 | BloodGuts UK Horror Awards | Best Internation Film | Évolution | Nominated |
| 2016 | Titanic International Film Festival | Special Mention of the Jury | Évolution | Won |
| 2018 | London Film Festival | Best Short Film | De Natura | Nominated |
| 2018 | San Sebastián International Film Festival | Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Prize | De Natura | Nominated |
| 2018 | Stockholm International Film Festival | Best Short Film | De Natura | Nominated |
| 2021 | San Sebastián International Film Festival | Golden Seashell - Best Film | Earwig | Nominated |
| 2021 | San Sebastián International Film Festival | Special Prize of the Jury | Earwig | Won |
| 2021 | Toronto International Film Festival | Platform Prize | Earwig | Nominated |
| 2022 | Cleveland International Film Festival | Best Feature Film | Earwig | Nominated |

## Filmography
### As filmmaker

| Year | Title | Credited as | Credited as | Credited as | Notes |
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Editor | Notes |
| 1987 | La Première Mort de Nono | Yes | Yes | Yes | Short film |
| 1996 | La Bouche de Jean-Pierre | Yes | Yes | Yes | Short film |
| 1998 | Good Boys Use Condoms | Yes | Yes | No | Short film |
| 2004 | Innocence | Yes | Yes | No | Feature film |
| 2009 | Enter the Void | No | Yes | No | Directed by Gaspar Noé |
| 2014 | Nectar | Yes | Yes | No | Short film |
| 2015 | Evolution | Yes | Yes | No | Feature film |
| 2018 | De Natura | Yes | Yes | No | Short film |
| 2021 | Earwig | Yes | Yes | No | Feature film |
| 2025 | The Ice Tower | Yes | Yes | No | Feature film |

#### Editor

| Year | Title | Director | Notes |
| 1986 | Festin | Sylvain Ledey | Short film |
| 1991 | Horizons artificiels (Trois rêves d'architecture) | Alain Bourges | Documentary |
| 1991 | Carne | Gaspar Noé | Short film |
| 1994 | La Baigneuse | Joël Leberre | Short film |
| 1994 | L'Oeil du cyclone | Gaspar Noé | TV series; 1 episode |
| 1997 | Marquis de Slime | Quélou Parente | Short film |
| 1998 | I Stand Alone | Gaspar Noé | Feature film |

#### Producer

| Year | Title | Director | Notes |
| 1991 | Carne | Gaspar Noé | |
| 1998 | I Stand Alone | Gaspar Noé | |
| 2019 | Lux Æterna | Gaspar Noé | |
| 2021 | Vortex | Gaspar Noé | Co-producer |

### Acting roles

| Year | Title | Role | Director | Notes |
| 1989 | Les cinéphiles - Le retour de Jean | Lucile | Louis Skorecki | Feature film |
| 1989 | Les cinéphiles 2 - Eric a disparu | Lucile | Louis Skorecki | Feature film |
| 1991 | Carne | L'infirmiere | Gaspar Noé | Short film |