Artist Talk: Mia Hansen-Løve

Michel Hazanavicius won countless awards, including an Oscar, for THE ARTIST, a black-and-white homage to silent film with which his career is mainly associated. Yet the director, born in Paris in 1957, has also made remarkable films before and since, making him one of the most versatile filmmakers in contemporary French cinema. After his beginnings in television, he made the pop-agent film parodies OSS 117 - THE SPY WHO LOVED HIMSELF and OSS 117 - HE IS HIMSELF ENOUGH, which show THE ARTIST leading man Jean Dujardin as a smug spy. Hazanavicius moved into more intellectual territory with GODARD MON AMOUR, his homage to the recently deceased Jean Luc Godard. With his latest film FINAL CUT, he takes a look behind the scenes of the shooting of a zombie film - and takes a risk: the first 30 minutes seem so emphatically amateurish that you might be tempted to leave the cinema. But then you would miss a punchline that is pure Hazanavicius: a playful, empathetic declaration of love for cinema.