I was born in 1964 and raised in Bournazel, a village in the Aveyron region, where my parents had a farm. After graduating high school and flirting with a history degree at Montpellier University, I dropped out to work and write novels that were never published. Since what I really wanted was to make movies, I directed my first short, Les héros sont immortels, in 1990, then a second and a third, until I moved onto longer films in the category known as "short features" : Du soleil pour les gueux in 2000 and Ce vieux rêve qui bouge in 2001. Since then, I have directed seven features, including L'inconnu du lac and Rester vertical, and the most recent Miséricorde, which premiered this year at the Cannes Festival. I eventually published three novels with P.O.L. publishing company: Ici commence la nuit in 2014 and Rabalaïre in 2021 and Pour les siècles des siècles in 2024.

In 2019, during a stay in Fresnoy as guest artist, I took up photography again, and exhibited for the first time in my life at Panorama 2019. In 2023, I exhibited at Galerie Crèvecœur in Paris, Buchholz in Berlin, and Le Consortium in Dijon as part of the Almanach biennial. 
I still haven't married, I don't have children and I no longer live in the Aveyron.
Alain Guiraudie