François Weyergans (b. 1941) is a Belgian (French speaking) writer and director. He was born on the 9th of December 1941 at Etterbeek in Brussels. His father, Franz Weyergans was a Belgian, and also a writer, while his mother was from Avignon in France.
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Biography
He completed film studies at the IDHEC (Hautes Études Cinématographiques), where he came to love the films of Bresson and Godard, among others. He soon began to write for Cahiers du cinema and directed his first film in 1961, on Maurice Béjart.
Novels
After having been through some psychoanalysis, he published a satirical account of his treatment, a novel called Le Pitre (1971), which attracted some critical notice and won the Prix Roger Nimier. His second novel in 1981 was Macaire le Copte. This won the Prix Rossel in his native Belgium, as well as the Prix des Deux Magots in France. From then on, Weyergans devoted himself entirely to writing, spending whole nights working from eleven o’clock until the following noon. His subsequent works - mostly of an ironic autobiographical nature - also won literary prizes, including the Prix Méridien des quatre jurys in 1983 for Le radeau de la Méduse the Prix Renaudot in 1992 for La démence du boxeur. Most recently, his Trois jours chez ma mère gained the Prix Goncourt in 2005. In this, he satirises his own famous difficulties in delivering a promised manuscript in time. In the process he creates a "Russian doll" type structure where he (Weyergans) writes as a writer, Weyergraf, who finds all sorts of distractions or reasons to avoid writing a book called "Trois jours chez ma mère". He does this largely by inventing an author called Graffenberg, who in turn invents another author Weyerstein who sketches out a possible structure - but he keeps getting waylaid by (very funny) meditations on his own life, loves (or just encounters), family, films and multiple enthusiasms and interests.
Films
- 1962 : Béjart (documentaire)
- 1963 : Hieronymus Bosch (court-métrage)
- 1965 : (des portraits Cinéastes de notre temps), 65 minutes
- 1967 : Beaudelaire is gestorven in de zomer
- 1967 : Aline
- 1972 : Un film sur quelqu'un
- 1977 : Maladie mortelle
- 1977 : Je t'aime, tu danses
- 1978 : Couleur Chair
