Jean-Pierre Dardenne

After studying Drama in the arts institute, Jean Pierre Dardenne and his brother Luc made some videos about the rough life in blue-collar small towns in the Wallonie. After their meeting with filmmaker Armad Gatti and cinematographer Ned Burgess, they decided to enter in the movie business. In 1978 they shot their first documentary, Le chant du rossignol, about the resistance against the Nazis during the second world war in Belgium.

In 1986 they shot their first fiction movie, Falsch, about a Jewish family massacred by the Nazis. After their second movie, Je pense a vous, they released La Promesse, a movie about inmigration in Belgium. The film was a success worldwide winning awards in many festivals.

Arta Dobroshi, Marion Cotillard and Adèle Haenel are the only non-Belgian actors that he and his brother cast to lead one of their films since Je pense à vous (1992). Cotillard was cast in Two Days, One Night (2014) after meeting the brothers on the set of Rust and Bone (2012), which was co-produced by them. The original plan was to work together in The Unknown Girl (2016), which was eventually made years later with Haenel in the lead. Cotillard is the most famous actor that they ever worked with.

In 1999 they had another hit with Rosetta, that won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Festival. The movie tells the story of a blue collar worker with an alcoholic mother who tries to have a better life in a small belgium city.

Interviewed in "World Directors in Dialogue" by Bert Cardullo (Scarecrow Press, 2011).

Has directed one Oscar-nominated performance: Marion Cotillard in Two Days, One Night (2014).