Bob Swaim

French film-maker, originally from the USA. He came to Paris to study anthropology, then made a number of short films and advertisements. La Nuit de Saint-Germain-des-Près (1977) became a television series. His most successful film to date is La Balance (1982), a story of police and informers, which won a César for best film.

However, spending most of his free time at the French Cinématheque, he quickly caught the "film bug" and dropped out of his doctoral program and entered l'Ecole Nationale de la Cinématographie et la Photographie on the rue de Vaugirard, later known as l'Ecole Louis Lumière.

After graduating from "Vaugirard" in 1970, Swaim spent most of the seventies writing and directing documentaries and commercials. Unable to break into the closed world of feature films, he founded, along with several other young filmmakers, a film company to produce their own films. During the few years of their existence, they produced over fifty theatrical short films of young debutant filmmakers including 3 short films that Swaim wrote, directed and produced. The three films won numerous international prizes and awards and enable Swaim to write and direct his first feature film, La Nuit De Saint Germain Des Prés (1977) starring Michel Galabru, Mort Shuman, and for the first time on screen, a young talented actor named Daniel Auteuil.

The La Nuit De Saint Germain Des Prés, shown at the Director's Fortnight(la Quinzine des Réalisateurs)at the Cannes Film Festival, was a critical success but a box office flop and it was four years before Swaim was to direct his next feature, La Balance. The film was not only one of the biggest box offices successes in the history of French cinema but went on to change the face of the French "polar". Le Monde wrote, "Avec La Balance, Bob Swaim a réinventé le film policier."

The film became an international success and led to Swaim's first Hollywood contract. The film starred Sigourney Weaver and Michael Caine, and introduced for the first time on the big screen, a young French actor, Vincent Lindon.

Swaim, now in Hollywood, signed a contract with MGM as a director, writer, and producer.

In 1989, Swaim left for Rome where he spent two years writing and directing the French classic novel;

After the film, Swaim came back to Paris and for the next few years developed a ground-breaking television series for France Télévisions, "Police-Secrets". The series, consisting of twelve 90-minute films, were one of the first realistic police dramas (polar) on French television. Apart from writing and producing the series, Swaim also directed several 90 minute films for France Télévision and Canal +.

In 1997, Bob Swaim returned to the cinema, directing The Climb (1997-1998) starring John Hurt and David Strathairn. The film was one of Swaim's most critically acclaimed films, winning prizes in numerous festivals including the prestigious UNICEF Prize for Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival.

Swaim then adapted Giovanni's Room, the American cult novel by James Baldwin for James Ivory and Ismail Merchant. The film, starring Daniel Auteuil, Frédéric Diefenthal and Lorant Deutsch, won the Grand Prix du Festival de Saint Malo that year.

Aside from writing, directing and producing, Bob Swaim has acted in several films including John Landis' Spies Like Us, Caroline Huppert's J'al Deux Amours, James Ivory's Soldiers' Daughters Never Cry, and most recently, Florence Quentin's Ole starring Gerard Depardieu and Gad Elmalech.

In the 1990s, it became obvious to many in the French film industry that one of the industry's biggest problems was the lack of qualified screenwriters so in 1993, Swaim joined the Association Équinoxe, a screenwriting workshop, founded by Jeanne Moreau. Since 1993, there have been almost 8000 screenplays submitted and over 200 writers selected, 135 international advisors, and a record 65 films produced and released.

He has also been an advisor-consultant at the Performing Arts Lab for Screenwriters in Kent, England and, most recently, at the Australian Film Commission's workshop in Sydney.

Currently Bob Swaim is writing his next feature film, "Pigalle-Barbès" (provisional title) – a thriller that takes place in Paris during the French-Algerian War.