Lucile Hadžihalilović

Lucile Emina Hadžihalilović (; born 7 May 1961) is a French film director and screenwriter of Bosnian descent. She wrote and directed the short film La Bouche de Jean-Pierre, and the feature films Innocence (2004)—for which she became the first woman to win the Stockholm International Film Festival's Bronze Horse Award for Best Film —Evolution (2015), Earwig (2021), and The Ice Tower (2025), the latter won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival.

Early life and education Hadžihalilović was born in Lyon, France on 7 May 1961, to Bosnian Yugoslav parents and grew up in Morocco until she was 17.

She studied art history

Career 1986–1998: Early work Hadžihalilović worked as an editor for a number of films before beginning her own projects. The first film she worked on was Sylvain Ledey's short Festin (1986), after which she edited Alain Bourges' 1991 documentary Horizons artificiels (Trois rêves d'architecture),

In the early 1990s, she began to collaborate with the Argentine filmmaker Gaspar Noé. Hadzihalilovic's first film after her graduation, La Bouche de Jean-Pierre (1996), was a result of this collaborative effort. Hadzihalilovic wrote, edited, produced, and directed the film while Noé worked as the cinematographer. La Bouche de Jean-Pierre was shown during the Un Certain Regard panel at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as being selected for various other notable festivals throughout the world. Another in the series, Sodomites, was made by Noé.

2004–2015: Innocence and acclaim In 2004, she released the critically acclaimed film Innocence, starring Marion Cotillard and Hélène de Fougerolles. The film was inspired by the 1903 novella Mine-Haha, or On the Bodily Education of Young Girls by German playwright Frank Wedekind.

Hadžihalilović released a short entitled Nectar in 2014, and the feature film Evolution in 2015. Evolution revolves around young boys who are subjected to mysterious treatments and live on an island inhabited solely by women and themselves.

Hadžihalilović also contributed to the screenplay of Noé's critically divisive Enter the Void (2009), and continued as a producer of Lux Æterna (2019) and Vortex (2021).

In 2025, Hadžihalilović released her fourth feature film, The Ice Tower, starring Marion Cotillard, on their second collaboration after Innocence (2004). The Ice Tower had its world premiere at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival in official competition, where it won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution. It also won the awards for Best Film and Best Production Design at the 2025 Neuchâtel Fantastic Film Festival, and the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Award at the 2025 San Sebastián Film Festival. The film was released theatrically in France by Metropolitan Filmexport on 17 September 2025. Yellow Veil Pictures acquired North American distribution rights to the film and released it theatrically in the United States on 3 October 2025.

Personal life Hadžihalilović has been in a relationship with Argentine filmmaker and frequent collaborator Gaspar Noé since 1985, after meeting on the set of Noé's first short film, Tintarella di Luna. Some sources say that Noé and Hadžihalilović are married, but Noé refers to Hadžihalilović as "my girlfriend" and "my life partner" in interviews. Noé considered Hadžihalilović's father as his second father.

Favourite films In 2022, Hadžihalilović participated in the Sight & Sound film polls of that year. It is held every ten years to select the greatest films of all time, by asking contemporary directors to select ten films of their choice. Hadzihalilovic selections were:

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Stalker (1979) Saikaku Ichidai Onna (1952) The Ascent (1977) Grave of the Fireflies (1988) The Red Shoes (1948) Last Year at Marienbad (1961) Tabu A Story of the South Seas (1931) Mamma Roma (1962) The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)

Awards

Filmography As filmmaker

Editor

Producer

Acting roles