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Born in 1943, the French director Jean-Jacques Annaud began his career with a bang: his debut feature LA VICTOIRE EN CHANTANT, a parable about colonialism, won an Academy Award in 1977. Originally active in the advertising sector, Annaud’s name reached beyond the circle of purely French cineastes to include a much wider audience when he directed the multi award-winning literary adaptation THE NAME OF THE ROSE (1986). His boundless curiosity and enthusiasm for spectacular themes enables him over and again to bridge the gap between art and commerce. The director of such cinema hits as SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET (1997) and ENEMY AT THE GATES (2001) offers insight into his multifaceted work at this ZFF Masters session.