Maiwenn

Maiwenn (1976-    ) is a French cinema actress, screenwriter and director of French, Breton, Vietnamese and Algerian descent.  Her mother is French actress Catherine Belkhodja.  She has a younger sister, Isild Le Besco, who is also a famous film actress, screenwriter and director.

Born on April 17, 1976 in Las Lilas, France, Maiwenn was brought onto the motion picture industry as a child actress by her mother.  Credited as Maiwenn Le Besco, she landed a series of notable roles on the French silver screen and made-for-television movies during her childhood and teenage years.  In 1983, she played the child version of the lead character, "Elle", which was portrayed by veteran French actress Isabelle Adjani in the critically acclaimed commercial blockbuster, L'Été Meurtrier (One Dead Summer) (1983).  Among her other acting credits during her adolescence include such films as L'État de Grâce (State of Grace) (1986) and Lacenaire (1990).  In the early 1990s, she shortened her professional name to just Maiwenn as a result to difficulties she had in her relationships with her parents.

After meeting Luc Besson at the annual César Film Awards show in 1991, Maiwenn at age 15 became romantically involved with the 32-year-old film director.  The following year, the two married and moved to Beverly Hills, California where Maiwenn would give birth to their daughter, Shanna.  During the course of her marriage to Besson, Maiwenn's acting career had pretty much gone on hiatus with the exception of a small part in the film, Léon (1994), credited as Quin-Quin.  While making the film, Le Cinquième Élément (The Fifth Element), in 1996 Besson fell in love with actress Milla Jovovich and began having an extra marital affair.  They divorced shortly thereafter.

After returning to Paris, Maiwenn resumed her acting career performing nightly at Le Café de la Gare in Le Pois Chiche, a one woman autobiographical show as a stand-up comedian.  She then returned to films as lead actress in Haute Tension (2003), Les Parisiens (2004) and Le Courage D'Aimer (2005).  In 2006, she made her feature film directorial debut in the semi-autobiographical Pardonnez-Moi, in which she had also produced and written the screenplay for.  The film would earn Maiwenn two César nominations at the beginning of 2007 in the categories for most promising actress and best first feature film.  Among the most popular films Maiwenn had also directed and written screenplays for include Le Bal des Actrices (All About Actresses) (2009), a mockumentary featuring a gala of top actresses in contemporary French cinema such as Mélanie Doutey, Julie Depardieu and Linh Dan Pham, Polisse (2011), a French drama film which had won the Cannes Film Festival jury prize, Lumieres award for best director, Cinemania Film Festival audience award and the Sarasota Film Festival award for best in world cinema and Mon Roi (2015), which had costarred her younger sister, Isild Le Besco, and was nominated for the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or award.  

Maiwenn had married her second husband, Jean-Yves Le Fur, a French businessman, events promoter and creator of DS Magazine in 2002.  The marriage lasted for only two years and produced a son, Diego, born on July of 2003.  

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