The BFI 53rd London Film Festival managed a rather impressive and eclectic gathering of the industry’s finest back in October. Jacques Audiard, the charismatic man behind some of modern French cinema’s finest and darkest films, took to the stage with journalist Jonathan Romney on Sunday for a discussion about his extensive career as a screenwriter, his move to the directing seat and his thoughts on political cinema.

With more than twenty years experience as a screenwriter under his belt, Jacques Audiard is clearly beyond a master of his trade. The son of French screenwriter and filmmaker Michel Audiard (who is credited to more than 130 films), he is too building a name as one of French cinema’s more formidable players. After teaming up with fellow writers who, when sat around a table, would distract their attention elsewhere just so the directorial burden was not stuck with them, "I was the only one left at the table", Audiard muses. This collective of writers and filmmakers – a production company obscurely named Bloody Mary – was the creative hub that Audiard turned to when his days as a screenwriter proved too arduous and the prospect of directing seemed right.

Audiard has always shown a finesse, or passion, for articulating, visually and emotionally, the dark and shady characteristics of human nature. His ability to detract from the romanticised norms of French cinema, and follow the most despicable of people to the point of sympathy stands tall as his trait. However, his vast knowledge of writing controversial and deviant films doesn’t seem to stand side-by-side with the production of a film. Working with stories and characters as complex as the ones he creates must surely ignite on-set problems? According to the French maestro, working with actors has to be learned, just like camera work, lighting and writing a screenplay, but you cannot learn it all at once he jokes.

Audiard’s perseverance as a filmmaker and a storyteller is perhaps best displayed in his 2005 film The Beat That My Heart Skipped; a noir-style thriller that follows the sinister and unforgiving demise of a property dealer named Tom (Romain Duris). His most recent endeavor is his gritty prison expose, A Prophet, which recently won the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes film festival and got narrowly beaten by Michael Haneke to win the Festival’s prestigious Palm d’Or. A Prophet stands beyond the parameters of filmmaking, and projects the beauty, sophistication, complexity, maturity, modesty and intelligence that has been sadly stowed away behind other modern crime dramas.  It is safe to say that Audiard’s films emit a distinctly political scent when they hit the scene, but is politics something that he puts in his films? Or is it simply intrinsic to the French cinema experience? "20 years ago political cinema was a genre, today a film is automatically political", he says.

Audiard’s playful approach to daring and sometimes troublesome narratives has shaped what French cinema ultimately can represent, and perhaps, a new European aesthetic is seeping from this once pen and paper mastermind. Having only produced five feature films in fifteen years, Audiard has never been seen to dominate the scene, but by occasionally dropping pebbles of shocking brilliance in a tranquil pond he has reminded the world that he is watching, learning and advancing. Remember, ripples make waves.

Jamie Isbell