Early Life
Denis was born in Paris, France to French natives, and raised in colonial French Africa: Burkina Faso, Somalia, Senegal and Cameroon, where her father was a civil servant. Her childhood spent living in West Africa with her parents and her younger sister would color her perspectives on certain political issues. It has been a strong influence on her films, which have dealt with themes of colonialism and post-colonialism in Africa. Her father moved with the family every two years because he wanted the children to learn about geography. Growing up in West Africa, Denis used to watch the old and damaged copies of war films sent from the United States. As an adolescent she loved to read. Completing the required material while in school, at night she would sneak her mother's detective stories to read. When Denis was 14 years old, she moved with her mother and sister to a Parisian suburb in France, a country that she hardly knew at all. Her parents wanted their children to finish their education in France.
Read more about this topic: Claire Denis
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“Parenting is the one area of my life where I can feel incompetent, out of control and like a total failure all of the time.”
—Attorney Father. As quoted in Reviving Ophelia, by Mary Pipher, ch. 4 (1994)