Michael Haneke Biography

Film director and writer Michael Haneke has won the Palme d’Or at Cannes twice, for 2009’s The White Ribbon and for 2012’s Amour (starring Emmanuelle Riva). An Austrian whose parents were both involved in theatrical arts, Haneke began his filmmaking career as a director in German television. He made his feature film debut in 1989 with The Seventh Continent, but it was his 2001 screen adaptation of Elfriede Jelinek‘s novel The Piano Teacher (starring Isabelle Huppert) that brought Haneke international acclaim as the polemical writer/director of socially conscious films that challenge the Hollywood paradigm. His other films include Benny’s Video (1992), Das Schloss (1997, based on Franz Kafka‘s The Castle), Funny Games (2007, starring Naomi Watts in a shot-by-shot remake of Haneke’s 1997 German film) and Caché (2005, released also as Hidden and starring Juliette Binoche). Haneke’s 2012 film Amour brought in five Oscar nominations, including two for Haneke as writer and as director.