Sylvie Testud
1971 (55 лет)She decided to become an actress during her youth, after having admired actresses in films. She then took acting lessons in Lyon with the actor and director Christian Taponard. In 1989, she moved to Paris to study history, as well as drama lessons in free classes at Cours Florent, then at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art for three years, with Jacques Lassalle and Catherine Hiegel for teachers.
In the early 1990s, she obtained her first small roles in the cinema, then in feature films such as The Story of the Boy Who Wanted to Be Kissed by Philippe Harel (1994), Le Plus Bel Age..., by Didier Haudepin (1995) or even Love, etc. by Marion Vernoux (1996).
In 1997, Sylvie Testud experienced her first great success at the cinema in Germany with the film Beyond Silence by Caroline Link, for which she learned German, the clarinet and sign language. She is rewarded as best actress by the German Film Prize (the equivalent of the César for best actress). In 1998, she played her first major role in French cinema and enjoyed great success in France with the role of Béa in Karnaval, the first feature film by Thomas Vincent, for which she was nominated for the César for best female hope and received the Michael Simon Prize. She then began an important acting career with a preference for auteur cinema.
In 2000, her performance in La Captive by Chantal Akerman (adaptation of the novel La Prisonnière by Marcel Proust) earned her a nomination as best actress at the European Film Prize. In 2001, she obtained, for her second nomination, the César for best female hope for the remarkable interpretation of Christine Papin, one of the Papin sisters, in Les Blessures assassines by Jean-Pierre Denis, based on a news item from 1933.
Viaje al país de los Tarahumaras
Federico Ceccheti
Sylvie Testud, Olivier Rabourdin
The life of Rayenari changes when the poet Antonin Artaud arrives to his village seeking the spiritual knowledge of the Tarahumara. Rayenari introduces him to the Peyote ceremony. However, the poet abandons the ritual and loses his soul. Sometime later, Rayenari discovers through dreams that Artaud has been committed to a mental hospital. It will be through this connection that Rayenari will help his friend to recover what he lost.
Journey to the Land of the Tarahumara
La Vie en Rose
Olivier Dahan
Marion Cotillard, Sylvie Testud
From the mean streets of the Belleville district of Paris to the dazzling limelight of New York's most famous concert halls, Edith Piaf's life was a constant battle to sing and survive, to live and love. Raised in her grandmother's brothel, Piaf was discovered in 1935 by nightclub owner Louis Leplee, who persuaded her to sing despite her extreme nervousness. Piaf became one of France's immortal icons, her voice one of the indelible signatures of the 20th century.
La Vie en Rose
Beyond Silence
Caroline Link
Sylvie Testud, Tatjana Trieb
Beyond Silence is about a family and a young girl’s coming of age story. This German film looks into the lives of the deaf and at a story about the love for music. A girl who has always had to translate speech into sign language for her deaf parents yet when her love for playing music grows strong she must decide to continue doing something she cannot share with her parents.
Beyond Silence
Faux contact
Eric Jameux
Sylvie Testud, Nasser Zerkoune
Paris is being rocked by a wave of bomb blasts. Stuck in a video game, Sadim calls the players helpline from a phone booth. Laurence takes his call and talks him through it. But their virtual chit-chat turns to drama as one misunderstanding leads to another.
Bad Connection
Fear and Trembling
Alain Corneau
Sylvie Testud, Kaori Tsuji
Amélie, a young Belgian woman, having spent her childhood in Japan, decides to return to live there and tries to integrate in the Japanese society. She is determined to be a "real Japanese" before her year contract runs out, though it precisely this determination that is incompatable with Japanese humility. Though she is hired for a choice position as a translator at an import/export firm, her inability to understand Japanese cultural norms results in increasingly humiliating demotions. Though Amelie secretly adulates her, her immediate supervisor takes sadistic pleasure in belittling her all along. She finally manages to break Amelie's will by making her the bathroom attendant, and is delighted when Amelie tells her the she will not renew her contract. Amelie realizes that she is finally a real Japanese when she enters the company president's office "with fear and trembling," which could only be possible because her determination was broken by Miss Fubuki's systematic torture.
Fear and Trembling
Annaluise & Anton
Caroline Link
Elea Geissler, Max Felder
Luise, called Pünktchen, and Anton are closest of friends. Being the daughter of a wealthy surgeon, young Pünktchen lives in a great house. Her mother, who always travels through the world more for public relation reasons than for the social tasks she pretends to fulfill, is never available to her as a mother. Anton, son of a single and sick mother in financial trouble, does his best to help her out of it by working late. Pünktchen decides to help her only friend (as nobody else would anyway) and starts singing in public places. Trouble arises when Anton can't resist stealing a golden lighter and Pünktchen's secret life is discovered by her parents. Two troubled families finally can see the need for actions to be taken.
Annaluise & Anton
Rebellion
Mathieu Kassovitz
Mathieu Kassovitz, Iabe Lapacas
April 1988, Ouvéa Island, New Caledonia. 30 gendarmes are taken hostage by a group of Kanak freedom fighters. 300 soldiers are sent from France to re-establish order. 2 men confront each other: Philippe Legorjus, chief of the terrorist squad, and Alphonse Dianou, head of the kidnappers. Through their shared values, they will attempt to make discussion triumph. But, in the middle of a presidential election, when the stakes are political, order isn't always dictated by morality. A violent and troubling epic that marks the return of Mathieu Kassovitz in front and behind the camera.
Rebellion
Legacy
Géla Babluani, Temur Babluani
Sylvie Testud, Stanislas Merhar
Three French hipsters and their translator travel through rural Georgia to claim a remote, ruined castle that one of them has inherited. En route, they encounter an old man and his grandchild who are on a journey to carry out a mysterious, morbid ritual designed to end a conflict between warring clans.
Legacy
Lourdes
Jessica Hausner
Sylvie Testud, Léa Seydoux
Christine is a wheelchair-using woman with severe multiple sclerosis. In order to escape her isolation, she makes a journey to Lourdes, the iconic site of pilgrimage in the Pyrenees Mountains, along with other people with varying disabilities. During her stay she begins to regain the use of her limbs. This is in contrast with others, who appear to have stronger faith than Christine but experience only slight, passing improvement. Her fellow pilgrims are eager to call it a miracle; however, as the pilgrimage draws to a close, exactly how accurate a claim this is becomes uncertain.
Lourdes
Karnaval
Thomas Vincent
Sylvie Testud, Amar ben Abdallah
Karnaval is set against a backdrop of intolerance and hostility in the gloomy Northern French city of Dunkirk. The story is set during carnival time, when the citizens let themselves loose for six weeks of partying, carousing and having a good time. The film centers on Larbi, an Arab youth, and his confrontation with one of the turning points of his life. After a violent argument with his father, Larbi decides to leave the family's business and go to Marseilles for a fresh start. On his last night in the town he grew up in, he sleeps in the hallway of an apartment building, where he is disturbed by Béa and Christian, a couple having fun at the carnival. Larbi is attracted to Béa and decides to stay a few more days to try his luck. In the free atmosphere of the carnival, Larbi discovers a world that he did not know existed, a world which is about to clash with his conservative outlook, and the three lives are changed forever.
Karnaval
Sentimental Education
C.S. Leigh
Clément Sibony, Julie Gayet
The story revolves around the lives of a group of international fashion models, focusing on the main character, Fabrice. The film examines the hollowness of his glamorous lifestyle, leading to self discovery and ultimately a personal catharsis (and his own death). The film is based on (really, inspired by) the French Book, L'Education Sentimentale, by Gustave Flaubert.
Sentimental Education
Simone, le voyage du siècle
Olivier Dahan
Elsa Zylberstein, Rebecca Marder
Simone Veil's life story through the pivotal events of Twentieth Century. Her childhood, her political battles, her tragedies. An intimate and epic portrait of an extraordinary woman who eminently challenged and transformed her era defending a humanist message still keenly relevant today.
Simone: Woman of the Century
Murderous Maids
Jean-Pierre Denis
Julie-Marie Parmentier, Sylvie Testud
Based on the true story of two chambermaids (the Papin sisters) of 1930s France who murdered their employer and her daughter. Christine Papin and Léa Papin are sisters with an already troubled past. Madame Lancelin takes them into her home and employs the girls as maids. Christine sees in Madame Lancelin an ideal mother figure — in spite of her severity. But their wretched background — an indifferent mother and drunken abusive father — casts a shadow over the girls and over time their ill-fated situation darkens. The sisters withdraw into themselves and finish by committing the worst — killing Madame Lancelin and her daughter after six years of service, on the 2 February 1933 in Le Mans.
Murderous Maids
L'idiot
Pierre Léon
Jeanne Balibar, Laurent Lacotte
Nastassia Philippovna finds herself juggling the affections of four men over the course of a single evening. One is her benefactor, the bourgeois Totsky. Another is the opportunistic Ganya, whom Totsky has promised 75,000 rubles if he will marry Nastassia. Rogozhin offers Nastassia 100,000 rubles for her hand. And the “idiot,” Prince Myshkin, loves Nastassia madly and vows to “save” her.
The Idiot
Les Femmes… ou les enfants d'abord…
Manuel Poirier
Sergi López, Marilyne Canto
Tom, a Spaniard, is married to Sylvie and lives a quiet but a bit boring life in the Britanny countryside (west of France). Trouble comes when Tom ex girlfriend reappears, asking for help, announcing him that she had a girl from him 9 years ago.
Women or Children First
