BY ACTOR: L

'Caramel' (2007) not only announced a striking new talent, it challenged what many might have expected from a female Lebanese director. Undermining stereotypes and hilariously funny at times, it also offered an insight into the roles of women in contemporary Beirut. 'Where Do We Go Now' (2011) employed the same device used in 'Lysistrata' (and more recently Spike Lee's 'Chi-Raq', 2015) – where sex is withheld from men until they can learn to live more peacefully.

No actor is more associated with the Nouvelle Vague (French New Wave) than Jean-Pierre Léaud One of the great icons of post-WWII French cinema, Léaud's career has been as idiosyncratic as it has long. At the age of 14, Léaud was cast as Antoine Doinel, director François Truffaut's young anti-hero in 'The 400 Blows' (1959). It was the first of five roles playing the character over a period of 20 years. During the 1960s, he also worked with Jean-Luc Godard on seven films including 'Weekend' and 'La Chinoise' (both 1967), with Jean Cocteau on 'Testament of Orpheus' (1960) and Pasolini on 'Pigsty' (1969). Arguably his most momentous year in film was 1973 when he appeared in Truffaut's 'Day for Night', Bertolucci's 'Last Tango in Paris' and Jean Eustache's 'The Mother and the Whore'. He has worked regularly since, for a wide variety of world filmmakers, including Aki Kaurismäki, Olivier Assayas, Tsai Ming-Liang, Bertrand Bonello and most recently Alberto Serra, taking the lead role in 'The Death of Louis XIV'.