Nicolas Saada

Director & actor · born 6 September 1965 · Paris, France

Nicolas Saada (born September 5, 1965) is a French screenwriter, director, producer, and journalist. Saada is renowned for his radio show Nova fait son cinéma, dedicated to film music, which he hosted between 1993 and 2007 on Radio Nova in Paris. He was also program director for Arte's fiction unit between 1992 and 1998, alongside Pierre Chevalier, and worked on over a hundred television films. As a journalist for Cahiers du cinéma (1988-2000), he specialized for many years in American and Asian cinema. In 1999, he co-wrote his first screenplay for a film by Pierre Salvadori, Les Marchands de sable. This was followed by other collaborations with Arnaud Desplechin, among others. In 2004, he directed his first short film, Les Parallèles, which was nominated for a César Award for Best Short Film in 2005. Then in 2009, his first feature film, Spy(s), was released, nominated the same year for the Louis Delluc Prize for Best First Film and the following year for the César Award for Best First Film. In 2012, he shot the short film Aujourd'hui with Bérénice Bejo and, in a brief appearance, Frederick Wiseman. In 2015, his second feature film, Taj Mahal, shot in India and starring young actress Stacy Martin, was released. The film was selected for the Telluride, Venice, and Ghent Film Festivals.

Where to start: The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (2021).