About Catherine Breillat
Catherine Breillat (French: [katʁin bʁɛjá]; born 13 July 1948) is a French filmmaker, novelist, and professor of cinema at the European Graduate School. == Early life == Breillat was born 13 July 1948 in Bressuire, Deux-Sèvres, France, to her father, Auzay-born Marcel Breillat, a doctor, and her mother Marie-Jeanne Meillan. Her older sister Marie-Hélène Breillat, born 2 June 1947, is an author, painter, and actress. Catherine has stated that, in her adolescence, her family would "diminish" her, and that her mother hated female children. Raised in the intensely religious environment of Niort and her family, she found refuge in the town library. She decided to become a writer and film director at the age of twelve after watching Ingmar Bergman's Sawdust and Tinsel, believing she had found her "fictional body" in Harriet Andersson's character, Anna. == Career == Breillat studied acting at Yves Furet's Studio d'Entraînement de l'Acteur (Actor's Training Studio) in Paris, together with her sister Marie-Hélène. At 16 years of age, she wrote her first novel, L'homme facile (A Man for the Asking), about a young woman subjugated by a man's fantasies. It was published in 1968 by Christian Bourgois and was immediately banned for readers under 18. In 1972, she attained her first film acting role in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, as a young dressmaker.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.