Maxime Alexandre
1971-02-04 | Ronse, East Flanders, Belgium
Maxime Alexandre was born in Renaix, Belgium, 1971. At five years old, he moved to Rome, Italy, with his mother, sisters, and brother. His stepfather, Inigo Lezzi (during that period A.D. for Marco Bellocchio, Gianni Amelio, and Nanni Moretti), let Maxime discover the Italian cinema sets one by one. Maxime soon worked as a young actor in several movies, including "Une Page d'Amour" directed by Elie Chouraqui, with Anouk Aimée and Bruno Cremer and Nanni Moretti's "Bianca" in 1984. A few years later, Maxime discovered his Photography passion on a set of a short-movie directed by his stepfather. In the late 1980s, Maxime moved with his family to Paris, where he began his career in the camera department working in commercials, learning from great Cinematographers like Darius Kondji, J.Y. Escoffier, P. Lhomme, Vilko Filak, and Italian cinematographers including Tonino Delli Colli and Franco Di Giacomo. His earliest work as a Director of Photography was shooting the second unit of a commercial for Michel Gondry. In 2001, Maxime met Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur, working in the second unit for Aja's father, Alexandre Arkadi, on the movie "Break of Dawn" written by Aja and Levasseur. The three collaborated on Aja's directorial debut, "High Tension," two years later. The movie was internationally recognized as the beginning of the French New Wave of horror in the 2000s and was picked up for distribution by Lions Gate Films. Maxime, Alexandre, and Gregory collaborated again on the remake of "The Hills Have Eyes" and "Mirrors." During the making of Hills Have Eyes, Maxime met Wes Craved, with whom he worked on "Paris, Je T'aime," an anthology film that grouped works from Alexander Payne, The Coen Brothers, Vincenzo Natali, and others, and the film was selected to screen at Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival, the second time for Maxime after "Marock," a movie directed by Laila Marrakchi in 2005. In 2006, Maxime was recognized by Variety as one of its Ten Cinematographers to Watch. Several other films have followed, including P2, directed by Franck Khalfoun; The Crazies, by Breck Eisner; The Voices, directed by Marjane Satrapi; The Crawl, by Alexandre Aja; Shazam, by David F. Sandberg and soon-to-be-release Never let go by Alexandre Aja and Paris Paradis by Marjane Satrapi.
