Darius Khondji

Darius Khondji

Birth : 1955-10-21, Tehran, Iran

History

Darius Khondji (born 21 October 1955) is an Iranian-French cinematographer. Khondji has worked with a number of high-profile directors, including David Fincher, Woody Allen, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Roman Polanski, Wong Kar-wai, Michael Haneke, Danny Boyle, Philippe Parreno, Bong Joon-ho, Nicolas Winding Refn, Paul Thomas Anderson, the Safdie brothers, Alejandro G. Iñárritu and James Gray. He was nominated for an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Evita, and has been nominated for three César Awards. Khondji was born in Tehran, Iran, to an Iranian father and a French mother. At an early age, his family relocated in France. He became interested in film early on and made Super-8 films in his teens. Later in life, he moved to the United States to study at UCLA and then majored in film from New York University and the International Center of Photography. During this period, two teachers influenced his decision to become a cinematographer: Jonas Mekas and Haig Manoogian (Martin Scorsese's film teacher). He realized that "all I wanted to do was shoot the other students' films. I was concerned with the power of the image and much less with story." After his time in the United States, Khondji returned to France in 1981 and worked as an assistant for cinematographers like Bruno Nuytten, Martin Schafer and Pascal Marti. He also worked as a lighting director on music videos and commercials. His second feature film was Le tresor des Iles Chiennes (1991), a low budget, black and white, post-atomic adventure film. His work on this movie was significant enough to warrant the Cahiers du cinéma to publish one of its rare interviews with a cinematographer. It was on this film that he demonstrated an affinity for Cinemascope. He remarked in an interview, "I think it's the most beautiful format to frame. One can become absorbed in the faces when they're framed in 'Scope." His subsequent work on Delicatessen established his international reputation and earned him a Cesar nomination for Best Cinematography. One of his highest profile films was Seven which he got based on a Nike ad he shot with David Fincher and his work on Delicatessen. His work on Evita was nominated for an Oscar for the Best Cinematography. Darius worked on three European-shot films by Woody Allen: Midnight in Paris (2011), To Rome with Love (2012) and Magic in the Moonlight (2014). In 2012, Khondji shot the Palme D'or-winning film Amour, which also won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for Best Picture. Khondji cites Gregg Toland as his favorite cinematographer. "I particularly admire his work on John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath." He also greatly admires James Wong Howe's work, in particular Hud. Khondji has said that his dream project would be "a 16mm black and white film of On the Road!" Khondji is married to Marianne Chemetov, a daughter of the French architect Paul Chemetov and has three children: Marie-Louise, Josephine, and Alexandre. Source: Article "Darius Khondji" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Profile

Darius Khondji

Movies

Mickey 17
Director of Photography
Mickey 17 is an "expendable", a disposable employee, on a human expedition sent to colonize the ice world Niflheim. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of its memories intact.
Armageddon Time
Director of Photography
In 1980, Queens, New York, a young Jewish boy befriends a rebellious African-American classmate to the disapproval of his privileged family and begins to reckon with growing up in a world of inequality and prejudice.
BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Director of Photography
A renowned Mexican journalist and documentary filmmaker living in Los Angeles, after being named the recipient of a prestigious international award, is compelled to return to his native country, unaware that this simple trip will push him to an existential limit.
Strasbourg 1518
Director of Photography
Inspired by a powerful involuntary mania which took hold of citizens in the city of Strasbourg just over five hundred years ago, this film is a collaboration in isolation with some of the greatest dancers working today.
Uncut Gems
Director of Photography
A charismatic New York City jeweler always on the lookout for the next big score makes a series of high-stakes bets that could lead to the windfall of a lifetime. Howard must perform a precarious high-wire act, balancing business, family, and encroaching adversaries on all sides in his relentless pursuit of the ultimate win.
Anima
Director of Photography
In a short musical film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Thom Yorke of Radiohead stars in a mind-bending visual piece. Best played loud.
Persona: The Film That Saved Ingmar Bergman
Self
In 1965 Ingmar Bergman filmed “Persona”, the cult film that brought together all of the Swedish filmmaker’s obsessions and became a turning point in his career.
Why Can’t We Get Along
Director of Photography
rag & bone presents “Why Can’t We Get Along”, a ‘rag & bone Films’ Production starring Kate Mara and Ansel Elgort.
Okja
Director of Photography
A young girl named Mija risks everything to prevent a powerful, multi-national company from kidnapping her best friend - a massive animal named Okja.
The Lost City of Z
Director of Photography
A true-life drama in the 1920s, centering on British explorer Col. Percy Fawcett, who discovered evidence of a previously unknown, advanced civilization in the Amazon and disappeared whilst searching for it.
Close Encounters with Vilmos Zsigmond
Self
A very special encounter between legendary American cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond and young French director Pierre Filmon. A personal journey with the brightest shadowmaker and his friends.
Irrational Man
Director of Photography
On a small town college campus, a philosophy professor in existential crisis gives his life new purpose when he enters into a relationship with his student.
Magic in the Moonlight
Director of Photography
Set in the 1920s French Riviera, a master magician is commissioned to try and expose a psychic as a fraud.
The Immigrant
Director of Photography
1921 New York. An immigrant woman is tricked into a life of burlesque and vaudeville until a dazzling magician tries to save her and reunite her with her sister who is being held in the confines of Ellis Island.
Castello Cavalcanti
Director of Photography
In 1955 in Italy, race car driver Jed Cavalcanti suffers a mishap during the Molte Miglia rally and finds himself in a small town with a few familial surprises.
Illusions & Mirrors
Cinematography
ILLUSIONS and MIRRORS is about the futile attempt of chasing a shadow that wanders through the dunes of an empty beach. When it finally comes to an encounter in a deserted house, the young woman experienced a disturbing surprise.
Amour
Director of Photography
Georges and Anne are in their eighties. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Their daughter, who is also a musician, lives abroad with her family. One day, Anne has a stroke, and the couple's bond of love is severely tested.
To Rome with Love
Director of Photography
Four tales unfold in the Eternal City: While vacationing in Rome, architect John encounters a young man whose romantic woes remind him of a painful incident from his own youth; retired opera director Jerry discovers a mortician with an amazing voice, and he seizes the opportunity to rejuvenate his own flagging career; a young couple have separate romantic interludes; a spotlight shines on an ordinary man.
Midnight in Paris
Director of Photography
A romantic comedy about a family traveling to the French capital for business. The party includes a young engaged couple forced to confront the illusion that a life different from their own is better.
Madonna: Sticky & Sweet Tour
Director of Photography
A two-hour live concert from her Sticky & Sweet Tour from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Chéri
Director of Photography
A sumptuous dramatic comedy set in late 19th Century France, during the Belle Epoque, a period of social and cultural excess in European upper classes which ended only as the First World War erupted.
June 8, 1968
Cinematography
A film which reenacts images taken by Paul Fusco of the train voyage that transported Robert Kennedy’s corpse from New York to Washington D.C. on June 8, 1968. The film takes the point of view of the dead, a tracking shot moves through rural and urban American landscapes. People who have come to pay their respects line the tracks, staring as if in an immobile trance.
Protect You + Me
Director of Photography
A reminder of a long-forgotten event, combined with a challenging situation, provokes a man to extreme action.
The Ruins
Director of Photography
Americans Amy, Stacy, Jeff and Eric look for fun during a sunny holiday in Mexico, but they get much more than that after visiting an archaeological dig in the jungle.
Funny Games
Director of Photography
When Ann, husband George, and son Georgie arrive at their holiday home they are visited by a pair of polite and seemingly pleasant young men. Armed with deceptively sweet smiles and some golf clubs, they proceed to terrorize and torture the tight-knit clan, giving them until the next day to survive.
My Blueberry Nights
Director of Photography
Elizabeth has just been through a particularly nasty breakup, and now she's ready to leave her friends and memories behind as she chases her dreams across the country. In order to support herself on her journey, Elizabeth picks up a series of waitress jobs along the way. As Elizabeth crosses paths with a series of lost souls whose yearnings are even greater than her own, their emotional turmoil ultimately helps her gain a greater understanding of her own problems...
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait
Director of Photography
Halfway between a sports documentary and an conceptual art installation, "Zidane" consists in a full-length soccer game (Real Madrid vs. Villareal, April 23, 2005) entirely filmed from the perspective of soccer superstar Zinedine Zidane.
The Interpreter
Director of Photography
After Silvia Broome, an interpreter at United Nations headquarters, overhears plans of an assassination, an American Secret Service agent is sent to investigate.
Wimbledon
Director of Photography
British tennis player Peter clutches to an embarrassingly low position on the tennis-ranking ladder. Handed a wild card for Wimbledon, he expects it to be his final bow.
Shooting 'Panic Room'
Self
Watch David Fincher's journey of the filming process for Panic Room (2002) in this interesting documentary. We see the entire cast and crew throughout production until the final filming day. Many interviews and on-set footage inform us on how the shoot was.
Anything Else
Director of Photography
Jerry Falk, an aspiring writer in New York, falls in love at first sight with a free-spirited young woman named Amanda. He has heard the phrase that life is like "anything else," but soon he finds that life with the unpredictable Amanda isn't like anything else at all.
Tooba
Director of Photography
Her poetic two-channel video installation Tooba is based on the Koran, in which Tooba, the sacred tree of paradise, offers shelter and sustenance to those in need. Neshat's video places a woman within a groove in the trunk of a large fig tree, symbolising its soul. They stand, alone, in a stone-walled garden set in a mountainous landscape. Men and women draw near and enter the enclosure, seeking refuge, as the Tooba-woman disappears into the Tooba-tree. The piece is ambiguous. Who has agency? Is it the crowd, who 'invade' the garden or the tree-woman who draws them towards her like a magnet? Tooba is dedicated to Iranian writer Shahrnush Parsipour, whose novel Women without Men concerns five women sojourning in a garden, one of whom is transformed into a tree.
Panic Room
Director of Photography
Trapped in their New York brownstone's panic room, a hidden chamber built as a sanctuary in the event of break-ins, newly divorced Meg Altman and her young daughter Sarah play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with three intruders - Burnham, Raoul and Junior - during a brutal home invasion. But the room itself is the focal point because what the intruders really want is inside it.
The Beach
Director of Photography
Twenty-something Richard travels to Thailand and finds himself in possession of a strange map. Rumours state that it leads to a solitary beach paradise, a tropical bliss - excited and intrigued, he sets out to find it.
The Ninth Gate
Director of Photography
An all-expenses-paid international search for a rare copy of the book 'The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows' brings an unscrupulous book dealer deep into a world of murder, double-dealing and satanic worship.
In Dreams
Director of Photography
A suburban housewife learns that she has psychic connections to a serial killer, and can predict this person's motives through her dreams.
Johnny 316
Consulting Producer
A preacher without resources spends his days reciting Bible verses. One day he meets a young jobless girl who wanders on Hollywood Boulevard. An impossible love story begins.
Alien Resurrection
Director of Photography
Two hundred years after Lt. Ripley died, a group of scientists clone her, hoping to breed the ultimate weapon. But the new Ripley is full of surprises … as are the new aliens. Ripley must team with a band of smugglers to keep the creatures from reaching Earth.
Evita
Director of Photography
The hit musical based on the life of Evita Duarte, a B-movie Argentinian actress who eventually became the wife of Argentinian president and dictator Juan Perón, and the most beloved and hated woman in Argentina.
Stealing Beauty
Director of Photography
Lucy Harmon, an American teenager is arriving in the lush Tuscan countryside to be sculpted by a family friend who lives in a beautiful villa. Lucy visited there four years earlier and exchanged a kiss with an Italian boy with whom she hopes to become reacquainted.
Se7en
Director of Photography
Two homicide detectives are on a desperate hunt for a serial killer whose crimes are based on the "seven deadly sins" in this dark and haunting film that takes viewers from the tortured remains of one victim to the next. The seasoned Det. Sommerset researches each sin in an effort to get inside the killer's mind, while his novice partner, Mills, scoffs at his efforts to unravel the case.
The City of Lost Children
Director of Photography
A scientist in a surrealist society kidnaps children to steal their dreams, hoping that they slow his aging process.
Before the Rain
Thanks
The circularity of violence seen in a story that circles on itself. In Macedonia, during war in Bosnia, Christians hunt an ethnic Albanian girl who may have murdered one of their own. A young monk who's taken a vow of silence offers her protection. In London, a photographic editor who's pregnant needs to talk it out with her estranged husband and chooses a toney restaurant.
Wacko
Director of Photography
An anthology movie comprising four weird stories. Like the Twilight Zone movie but strictly played for laughs. There’s a bit of everything, car explosions, french debauchery, serial-killers, crazy broads, silly humor and naughty language…
Delicatessen
Director of Photography
In a post-apocalyptic world, the residents of an apartment above the butcher shop receive an occasional delicacy of meat, something that is in low supply. A young man new in town falls in love with the butcher's daughter, which causes conflicts in her family, who need the young man for other business-related purposes.
Models: The Film
Cinematography
Chronicles five of fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh's muses, the supermodels of the early 1990s.
Treasure of the Bitch Islands
Director of Photography
The world after the atomic age. An engineer disappears, together with his consortium (Kryo'Corp) and his discovery: a new energy source powered by the fusion of two primary substances. Ulysses, Kryo'Corp's heir, organises an expedition to the only place these substances occur.
Kiss Me
Cinematography
The life of a twelve-year-old living with her mother is disrupted by the arrival of a very young man at home. While her feelings become confused and the dramas burst, the girl will try to find in his entourage someone able to listen and understand it, before the worst happens.