| Déborah François | |
| Birth Date: | 1987 5, df=yes[1] |
| Birth Place: | Rocourt, Liège, Belgium[2] |
| Occupation: | Actress |
| Years Active: | 2005–present |
| Known For: | L'Enfant Populaire |
Déborah François (in French pronounced as /debɔʁa fʁɑ̃swa/; born 24 May 1987) is a Belgian actress.[1] She is best known for her starring role in the Palme d'Or-winning film, The Child (2005), directed by the Dardenne brothers. In 2009, she won a César Award for Most Promising Actress for The First Day of the Rest of Your Life.[3]
Déborah François was born in Rocourt, Liège, a provincial town of Belgium.[2] She is the daughter of a policeman and a social worker, and the second of their three children.[4]
François grew up in Liège, which is in the French-speaking area of Belgium, and in 2005 she was discovered by two film producers (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne) who gave her the principal female part in their film entitled L'Enfant – The Child. The film takes place not far from François's home town in the run-down industrial town of Seraing, features a young couple, Bruno and Sonia. The couple live off social security benefits and the proceeds of Bruno's robberies – he is the head of a gang of thieves. When Sonia gives birth to a baby, Bruno cold-bloodedly sells their child to a dealer for a few thousand euros. This film was awarded the Palme d'Or at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.[4]
After her début as an actress she left school and plunged into her next film in Denis Dercourt's Thriller La Tourneuse de pages - The Page Turner in 2006 which brought her further acclaim. In the film she plays the cool and calculating butcher's daughter Mélanie, who takes her revenge on the middle classes. Years before, she thought that her promising career as a pianist had been ruined by the carelessness of a famous pianist and member of a jury (played by Catherine Frot), so she now takes her revenge. Through a stroke of luck she manages to insert herself into the family unnoticed as a baby sitter and page turner. In this film François mimes the part of Mélanie, which won her special acclaim from the critics and for which she was nominated for a César Award in 2007.
In 2009, François won a César Award for her role as Fleur in The First Day of the Rest of Your Life.[4] In that same year, she was also awarded the Romy-Schneider Prize and starred in the film My Queen Karo opposite Matthias Schoenaerts. She then starred in the 2010 film Mes chères études, (later re-titled Student Services), about a university student who turns to prostitution to pay bills. In 2013, she was nominated for the Magritte Award for Best Actress for Les Tribulations d'une caissière. In 2014, she was nominated for Populaire and in 2015 she was nominated for Maestro.
François lives in Paris, France, after growing up in Liège, Belgium, where she attended the same high school as fellow actress Marie Gillain, who also features in Les Femmes de l'Ombre (as Suzy Desprez, while she assumes the role of Gaëlle Lemenech).
François said after the film L'Enfant: "My life changed completely. Before 'L'Enfant,' I thought, 'I'm this lucky girl who is going to make a movie, but that's going to be the only movie I'll ever make.' I had never even been to Paris before, and all of a sudden I'm around the world with festivals. It was very different from high school."[5]
She was in a brief relationship with Mario Casas in 2020.[6]
| Year | Title | Role(s) | Director(s) | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Malveillos, il est minuit Poupée | Vazimolette | Christian Pfohl & Kram Reyob | Short film | |
| 2005 | The Child | Sonia | Dardenne Brothers | Joseph Plateau Award for Best Belgian Actress | |
| 2006 | The Page Turner | Mélanie Prouvost | Denis Dercourt | ||
| 2007 | Red Ants | Alex | Stéphan Carpiaux | ||
| Indian Summer | Suzanne | Alain Raoust | |||
| 2008 | Female Agents | Gaëlle Lemenech | Jean-Paul Salomé | ||
| The First Day of the Rest of Your Life | Fleur Duval | Rémi Bezançon | César Award for Most Promising Actress | ||
| 2009 | Unmade Beds | Véra | Alexis Dos Santos | ||
| Please, Please Me! | Aneth | Emmanuel Mouret | |||
| My Queen Karo | Dalia | Dorothée Van Den Berghe | |||
| 2010 | Student Services | Laura | Emmanuelle Bercot | ||
| 2011 | The Monk | Valerio / Mathilde | Dominik Moll | ||
| Memories Corner | Ada Servier | Audrey Fouché | |||
| The Tribulations of a Cashier | Solweig Antoniazi | Pierre Rambaldi | |||
| 2012 | Zarafa | Zarafa | Rémi Bezançon & Jean-Christophe Lie | English dub provided by Erica Schroeder | |
| Populaire | Rose Pamphyle | Régis Roinsard | |||
| 2013 | Going Away | Emmanuelle Cambière | Nicole Garcia | ||
| 2014 | Maestro | Gloria | Léa Fazer | ||
| 2016 | The Poisoning Angel | Hélène Jégado | Stéphanie Pillonca-Kervern | ||
| Cézanne and I | Marie-Hortense Fiquet | Danièle Thompson | |||
| My Family Already Adores You! | Éva Périné | Jérôme Commandeur & Alan Corno | |||
| 2017 | Everyone's Life | Jessica | Claude Lelouch | ||
| Praise Me! | Léa Masson | Coline Assous & Virginie Schwartz | |||
| 2018 | Territory of Love | Maria | Romain Cogitore | ||
| 2019 | Never Grow Old | Audrey Tate | Ivan Kavanagh | ||
| Savage State | Justine | David Perrault | |||
| 2020 | The Paramedic | Vanesa François | Carles Torras | ||
| The Long Teeth | Mathilde | Jérôme Genevray | In Production |
| Year | Association | Category | Work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Joseph Plateau Awards | Joseph Plateau Award for Best Belgian Actress | L'Enfant – The Child | |
| César Awards | César Award for Most Promising Actress | L'Enfant – The Child | ||
| 2007 | César Awards | César Award for Most Promising Actress | The Page Turner | |
| Lumiere Awards | Lumiere Award for Most Promising Young Actress | The Page Turner | ||
| SACD Awards | Suzanne Bianchetti Award | |||
| 2009 | Prix Romy Schneider | |||
| César Awards | César Award for Most Promising Actress | The First Day of the Rest of Your Life | ||
| 2013 | Globes de Cristal Award | Globes de Cristal Award for Best Actress | Populaire | |
| Magritte Awards | Magritte Award for Best Actress | Les Tribulations d'une caissière | ||
| 2014 | Magritte Award for Best Actress | Populaire | ||
| 2015 | Magritte Award for Best Actress | Maestro | ||