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Olivier Assayas (born January 25, 1955) is a French film director and screenwriter. He made his debut in 1986, after directing some short films and writing for the influential film magazine Cahiers du cinéma. Assayas's father was French director/screenwriter Jacques Remy (1910–1981). Assayas started his career in the industry by helping him. He ghostwrote episodes for TV shows his father was working on when his health failed. His film Cold Water was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. His biggest hit to date has been Irma Vep, starring Hong Kong... MORE

Olivier Assayas (born January 25, 1955) is a French film director and screenwriter. He made his debut in 1986, after directing some short films and writing for the influential film magazine Cahiers du cinéma. Assayas's father was French director/screenwriter Jacques Remy (1910–1981). Assayas started his career in the industry by helping him. He ghostwrote episodes for TV shows his father was working on when his health failed. His film Cold Water was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. His biggest hit to date has been Irma Vep, starring Hong Kong star Maggie Cheung, which manages to be a tribute both to French director Louis Feuillade and to Hong Kong cinema. While working at Cahiers du cinéma, Assayas wrote lovingly about European film directors he admires but also about Asian directors. One of his latest films is a documentary about Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien. He married Hong Kong movie actress Maggie Cheung in 1998. They divorced in 2001, but their relationship remained amicable, and in 2004 Cheung made her award-winning movie Clean with him. He married actress-director Mia Hansen-Løve. They met when Hansen-Løve, then seventeen at LESS