Diane Kurys facts for kids

Diane Kurys (born December 3, 1948) is a famous French director, producer, and screenwriter. She also worked as an actress. Many of her films are like stories from her own life.

Diane Kurys: Her Early Life and Family

Diane Kurys was born in Lyon, France. She is the younger of two daughters. Her parents were immigrants from Russia and Poland. Diane and her older sister grew up in Lyon.

Diane's parents met and married in 1942. They separated in 1954. This divorce was a very important event for Diane. It became a big source of ideas for many of her movies. She once said she made films about her parents because she "wanted to see them back together again." After the divorce, Diane and her sister moved to Paris with their mother. Her mother opened a women's fashion shop there. Her father stayed in Lyon and ran a men's clothing store. Diane lived with her mother, but at age sixteen, she even ran away to join her father for a time.

When she was a teenager, Diane became involved in student movements in 1968. She met her partner, Alexandre Arcady, in 1964 when she was fifteen. They have been together since the 1960s. They also have two film production companies together. Their son, Yasha, born in 1991, is an author who writes under the name Sacha Sperling.

From Acting to Directing

Diane Kurys first studied literature at university. Then, in the 1970s, she became a theater actress. She worked with famous theater groups. She acted in plays, movies, and TV shows for eight years.

Diane enjoyed being part of the acting world. However, she felt she couldn't truly express herself as an actress. She often felt rebellious because she didn't like being told exactly what to do by directors. This feeling made her want to try writing and making her own films. She wanted to be in charge of her own creative work.

Diane Kurys' Directing Career

In 1975, Diane helped adapt a play for French television. The next year, she started writing a book about her own life. With some help from the government, she turned this book into a movie script. This became her first film as a director, called Peppermint Soda (1977).

Early Films Inspired by Her Life

Peppermint Soda is set in 1963. It tells the story of a girl named Anne who is growing up. The film shows her life with divorced parents and her relationship with her sister. Diane dedicated the movie to her own sister. She said her inspiration came "from myself, my own life, my own experience." The film was very successful with both critics and audiences.

Her next film was Cocktail Molotov, released in 1980. This movie showed the student protests in Paris in May 1968. It was seen through the eyes of three young people: Anne, Frank, and Bruno. This film is like a follow-up to Peppermint Soda.

Diane Kurys explored the topic of divorce again in her film Entre Nous (also known as Coup de foudre, 1983). This time, the story was told from the mother's point of view. The film was inspired by Diane's own family history. It showed a strong friendship between two women, which was unusual for the 1940s and 1950s. Diane said the film was her way to "allow them to live together once more" on screen. This film was very popular. It won an award at the San Sebastián Film Festival. It was also nominated for Best Film at the 9th César Awards and for Best Foreign Language Film at the 56th Academy Awards.

Expanding Her Stories

In 1987, Diane Kurys opened the 40th Cannes Film Festival with her first English-language film, A Man in Love. This movie was different because it wasn't mostly about her own life. It followed an American movie star and a British actress who meet while filming in Rome.

She returned to stories inspired by her life with C'est la vie (1990). This film featured a teenage main character in the 1950s whose parents were about to divorce. It looked at themes like girls becoming independent and growing up. After this, she directed the comedy Love After Love (1992). This film was about a writer dealing with two relationships. Then came Six Days, Six Nights (1994), which explored the relationship between two adult sisters after their mother's death. Both of these films were inspired by Diane's observations of life in Paris in the 1990s.

Exploring New Subjects

Diane Kurys then directed a historical drama called Children of the Century (1999). This movie was about the dramatic love story between two famous French writers from the 1800s, George Sand and Alfred de Musset. Diane wanted to make a film that wasn't about her own life. She was interested in the mature characters and the untold story. The film was even shot in the real places where Sand and Musset had lived.

Her ninth film, I'm Staying! (2003), was a romantic comedy. It was about a love triangle where a husband, his wife, and her lover all end up living in the same apartment. Two years later, she made another comedy, The Anniversary (2005). This film was about a famous TV producer who brings his old friends together after a book is published that makes him look bad.

In 2008, Diane directed Sagan, a movie about the life of the famous French writer Françoise Sagan.

Her film For a Woman (2013) was filmed in Lyon. It tells a story about a secret relationship from the husband's point of view. This film was partly inspired by her parents' difficult marriage and divorce. It is seen as a companion film to her earlier movie Entre Nous, which told the story from the mother's side. This film won an award at the 2014 CoLCoA French Film Festival.

In 2016, she directed Arrête ton cinéma!, a comedy based on a book. It follows a famous actress who is thinking about taking a very big movie role. Her most recent film, My Mother is Crazy (2018), was written by her son, Sacha Sperling, and Pietro Caracciolo. It shows the difficult reunion of a mother and son during a trip to Rotterdam.

Production Companies

Diane Kurys and Alexandre Arcady started their first production company, Alexandre Films, in 1977. This company helped produce her first six films. In 1994, they formed a new company called New Light Films. This company makes movies in both French and English.

Selected Filmography

Director

Actress

See also

In Spanish: Diane Kurys para niños