Chantal Poupaud (née Richard; died 21 June 2022) was a French film director, producer, and screenwriter. After starting out as a press attachée, she was behind the 1990s Arte series Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge [fr].
Chantal Poupaud | |
|---|---|
| Born | Chantal Richard |
| Died | 21 June 2022 |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | Film director Producer Screenwriter |
| Children | 2 |
Poupaud grew up in Brissac-Quincé in Maine-et-Loire.[1] She worked to promote the films of Marguerite Duras for seven years, as well as films directed by Benoît Jacquot, Chantal Akerman, Lino Brocka, Aki Kaurismäki, and Wim Wenders.[2]
At the start of the 1990s, Poupaud discovered the idea for Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge while watching her two sons, Yarol [fr], aged 18 and Melvil, aged 14. She believed that being a teenager was the same for all, despite different circumstances.[3] She then invented the idea of a series of films on adolescence.[4] Her series was broadcast in 1994 and received critical acclaim.
In the late 1990s, Poupaud experienced health problems, inspiring her to create a series based on "a heroine who finds herself facing a therapist after having found herself struggling with her body". She produced a series titled Toutes le femmes sont folles and the Jacquot-directed 1997 film Seventh Heaven, both based on this idea.[5]
Chantal Poupaud died on 21 June 2022.[6]