Facts about Denis Villeneuve
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Variety: Denis Villenueve
Nice archive of recent and past stories about Villenueve and his moviesDenis Villeneuve, from Quebec dreamer to Hollywood's new king of sci-fi
Detailed pre-Oscar 2017 profile by the CBCDenis Villeneuve of ‘Arrival’ Leans In to Strong Heroines
2016 profile from The New York TimesJust Watch Him
MacLeans magazine profile from 2011, as he was breaking throughShare this:
Denis Villenueve Biography
Denis Villenueve is the French-Canadian film director whose string of successes include the kidnapping thriller Prisoners (2013), the drug war drama Sicario (2015), and the Oscar-nominated sci-fi epic Arrival (2016).
Denis Villenueve had success in his filmmaking career almost from the start. He grew up in Quebec and studied at the Université du Québec à Montréal. He was only 30 when his early feature, August 32nd on Earth (1998), was screened at Cannes.
He reached larger audiences with the daring dramas Polytechnique (2009, based on a 1989 Montreal shooting massacre) and Incendies, (2010, about a Montreal mother hiding a mysterious and tragic past). The films won 9 and 8 Genie Awards, respectively, from the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, and Incendies was Oscar-nominated as best foreign language film.
From then on, Villenueve began working on bigger movies with bigger stars, from Prisoners (with Hugh Jackman and Viola Davis) to the psycho-thriller Enemy (2013, with Jake Gyllenhaal) to Sicario (with Emily Blunt as an FBI agent caught in drug war confusion on the Mexican-American border).
Film reviewers have noted that Villenueve’s films often have strong female leads, and that trend reached a new height with the 2016 sci-fi epic Arrival. The film, with Amy Adams as an expert linguist struggling to communicate with aliens who visit Earth, was nominated for 8 Oscars — including best picture and best director for Villenueve.
After the success of Arrival, Villenueve took on a daunting challenge: directing Blade Runner 2049, the sequel to the 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner. The sequel, starring Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling, began filming in 2016.
Extra credit
Denis Villenueve “is married to Tanya Lapointe, a Canadian journalist, and has three children from a previous relationship” according to a 2016 New York Times profile. A 2011 article in MacLeans magazine said Villenueve “has three children, aged 11 to 14, from a previous relationship” — meaning his children were born roughly from 1997-2000.