THE ARTIST

Michel was born in Paris in 1967, in a Jewish Lithuanian family. He was raised in a bilingual Jewish atmosphere, since with his family he talked in French and Yiddish. Indeed, in the preview of 'The Artist' in Los Angeles, he surprised everybody when he was asked in Yiddish, alluding that he didn’t know the language and answered: 'I'm a Jewish from Paris... I understand it.'. His brother is the actor Serge Hazanavicius, and he's married to the French Argentine actress Bérénice Bejo that participated in several of his films and is the protagonist of 'The Artist'. He started as director in 1999 with the film 'Mes Amis', a comedy in which his brother acts; success would risen in his native country with the following films 'OSS 117: The Cairo, spies' nest' (2006) and 'OSS 117: lost in Rio' (2009), and the international recoginition would come in 2011 with the mute film 'The Artist'.