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Claire Denis (born 21 April 1948) is a French film director and Professor of Film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Denis was born in Paris, France, and raised in colonial Africa (Burkina Faso, Somalia, Senegal and Cameroon), where her father was a French civil servant. She moved houses every two years because her father wanted them to know about geography. She used to watch the old damaged copies of war films sent from America when she was growing up in Africa. As an adolescent she loved to read. She would read all the required material in school, but would then... MORE

Claire Denis (born 21 April 1948) is a French film director and Professor of Film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Denis was born in Paris, France, and raised in colonial Africa (Burkina Faso, Somalia, Senegal and Cameroon), where her father was a French civil servant. She moved houses every two years because her father wanted them to know about geography. She used to watch the old damaged copies of war films sent from America when she was growing up in Africa. As an adolescent she loved to read. She would read all the required material in school, but would then sneak her mother's detective stories at night. Denis initially studied economics, but, she has said, "It was completely suicidal. Everything pissed me off." She then went to the IDHEC, the French film school, at the encouragement of her husband. He told her she needed to figure out what she wanted to do. She graduated from the IDHEC, and served as assistant to Jacques Rivette, Costa-Gavras, Jim Jarmusch, and Wim Wenders. Since 2002 Claire Denis has been a Professor of Film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Her debut feature film Chocolat (1988), a semi-autobiographical LESS