Director Olivier Assayas (1955)

Irma Vep (2022), the comedic drama miniseries, was created, written, and directed by Olivier Assayas for HBO. Premiering at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival on May 22, it is based on Assayas’s eponymous 1996 film. Critics have highly praised Vikander’s performance and Assayas’s direction in Irma Vep. The series follows disillusioned American movie star Mira, who travels to France to star as Irma Vep in a television adaptation of the French silent film serial Les Vampires. Against a backdrop of crime and suspense, Mira grapples with her own identity merging with that of ...

To Each His Own Cinema (2007) is a French comedy-drama anthology film created for the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival. It showcases 34 short films, each 3 minutes long, by 36 renowned directors from various parts of the world. The filmmakers were invited to express ‘their state of mind of the moment as inspired by the motion picture theatre’. The film’s subtitle, ‘a declaration of love to the big screen’, captures its overall theme. Many of the shorts touch on similar topics such as paying tribute to classic European art cinema, reflecting on the decline of movie-going, recollecting childhood awe, and exploring the ...

In the film Paris, I love you (2006), 20 different filmmakers each capture five-minute moments in the magical City of Love. These moments are linked together through transitional interstitial sequences and an introduction and epilogue. The transitions smoothly connect the previous film’s ending shot to the following film’s beginning shot, creating a continuous flow and building anticipation for what comes next. Through this technique, we witness the vibrant life of Paris through a recurring mysterious character and a common theme of love that ties all 20 segments together. 01. Tuileries (

Irma Vep (1996), a French comedy-drama film written and directed by Olivier Assayas, tells the story of director René Vidal’s struggles during the making of a film-within-a-film. Playing the heroine, Irma Vep, is Maggie Cheung, sporting a tight black latex catsuit. The character’s name is actually an anagram for vampire and serves as inspiration for the criminal gang known as The Vampires in Feuillade’s original serial. As René and the team watch dailies, he becomes livid with disappointment and storms out, leaving Maggie stranded at the ...