MICHEL GONDRY
Date of Birth: May 8, 1963
French-born Gondry was raised in Versailles, near Paris, and had dreams of becoming a painter or inventor. He attended art school to study graphics in the '80s. There he and friends created a pop-rock band called Oui-Oui. After releasing two albums, the band members went their separate ways in the early '90s.
Gondry, who had played drums for the band and directed their music videos, was asked by Björk to direct a video for her song, 'Human Behaviour.' Impressed with his work, Björk hired him to direct five more of her videos.
With the world-wide exposure, Gondry suddenly found himself sought out by other artists such as The Rolling Stones, Beck, Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers, Foo Fighters, Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl Crow and Cibo Matto, to direct their music videos. Gondry also entered the world of commercials, working with high-powered companies like Gap, Smirnoff, Air France, Nike, Coca Cola, Adidas and Polaroid.
While establishing himself in the music video and commercial industry, Gondry developed a
number of new film techniques including morfing and invented the idea of using several cameras to take pictures at the same time around someone. This technique was eventually used in The Matrix (1999). His work led to numerous awards in both fields.
In the late '90s, Gondry decided to give feature filmmaking a try. His English-speaking debut film was the comedy Human Nature (2002), starring Tim Robbins, Patricia Arquette and Rhys Ifans.
Gondry won numerous awards for his second film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett, including an Academy Award for Best Screenplay; Best Director from the Online Film Critics Society, the Toronto Film Critics Association and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association; and Best Original Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America. Since then, he's also won awards for his work on the comedy film Tokyo! (2008), a collaboration with directors Leos Carax and Joon-ho Bong.