Maiwenn returns behind the camera with Jeanne Du Barry, who tells the story of Louis XV’s favourite.

Her sixth movie as a director

Maiwenn had been known for many years as an actress and ex-wife of Luc Besson. She has now made her place in filmmaking. She is soon releasing her sixth film, Jeanne du Barry. This film will be screened at the Cannes Film Festival in May after the opening ceremony. Maïwenn notably won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011, for her first selection in competition, for “Polisse”. Four years later, she returned to the official selection with “Mon Roi”, which had enabled Emmanuelle Bercot to win the Best Actress Award. Maiwenn le Besco spent a childhood marked by the presence of a mother, the actress and journalist of Kabyle origin Catherine Belkhodja, who wanted to make her a movie star. In 1981, she appeared for the first time on screen, at the age of 5, in L’Anné prochaine … Si tout va bien by Jean-Loup Hubert. At the age of 7, she played the role of Isabelle Adjani as a child in Jean Becker’s The Deadly Summer.

She caused a sensation with Polisse

Maïwenn’s first big role was that of La Gamine, a turbulent teenager, opposite Johnny Hallyday in 1992. At 15, she met director Luc Besson who would become her boyfriend and cast her in Léon and The Fifth Element (1996 ). In 2011, she caused a sensation with Polisse, a film that she directed, scripted and performed, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes. Halfway between documentary and fiction, this film recounts, in a very realistic way, the daily life of a Brigade for the Protection of Minors in which we find the rapper Joey Starr, at that time companion and favorite actor of Maïwenn . Four years later, the filmmaker presents in Competition at Cannes her fourth feature film, Mon Roi, carried by Vincent Cassel and Emmanuelle Bercot (whom she therefore finds after Polisse). We follow a tumultuous love story between two characters who love and tear each other apart. In 2019, the actress plays the fiancée of François-Xavier Demaison in the comedy All Inclusive. She then goes back in front and behind the camera for DNA. Maïwenn camps there Snow, divorced and mother of three children. The latter regularly visits Emir, her Algerian grandfather who now lives in a retirement home. She adores and admires this pillar of the family, who raised her and above all protected her from the toxicity of her parents. The relationships between the many members of the family are complicated and there are many resentments.

“Jeanne du Barry”, Maiwenn’s last movie

Johnny Depp appears unrecognizable

Powdered face, golden silk outfit and white wig… In the photographs of the new film by director and actress Maïwenn, Johnny Depp appears unrecognizable, far from the image of a rocker that we know him to be. After the announcement of an album in preparation with the British musician Jeff Beck and a concert tour in 2022, the actor offers a “royal” return to the cinema in 2023. A surprise return since the actor has mainly done talk about him lately for the high-profile lawsuit that pitted him against his ex-wife, actress Amber Heard, early last year.