Maxime Alexandre

Maxime Alexandre was born in Renaix, Belgium, 1971. At five years old he moved with his mother, sisters and brother to Rome, Italy. His stepfather, Inigo Lezzi (during that period A.D. for Marco Bellocchio, Gianni Amelio, and Nanni Moretti) let Maxime discover one by one the Italian cinema sets. Maxime was soon working as a young actor in several movies including "Une Page d'Amour" directed by Elie Chouraqui, with Anouk Aimee and Bruno Cremer and Nanni Moretti's "Bianca" in 1984. A few years later Maxime discovered a passion for Photography passion on a set of a short movie directed by his stepfather. In the late 1980s Maxime moved with his family to Paris, where he begin his carrier in the camera department working in commercials learning from great Cinematographers like Darius Kondji, J.Y. Escoffier, P. Lhomme, Vilko Filak and Italians Cinematographers including Tonino Delli Colli and Franco di Giacomo. His earliest work as a Director of Photography was shooting second unit on a commercial for Michel Gondry. In 2001 Maxime met Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur when he shot second unit for Aja's father, Alexandre Arkadi, on the movie "Break of Dawn" written by Aja and Levasseur. Two years later the three of them collaborated on Aja's directorial debut, "High Tension". The movie was an internationally recognized as the beginning of the French New Wave of horror in the 2000s and was picked up for distribution by Lions Gate Films. Maxime, Alexandre and Gregory collaborated again on the remake of "The Hills Have Eyes" and "Mirrors." During the making of Hills Have Eyes, Maxime met Wes Craved with whom he worked on "Paris, Je T'aime," an anthology film that grouped together works from Alexander Payne, The Coen Brothers, Vincenzo Natali and others and the film was selected to screen in Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival, the second time for Maxime after "Marock," a movie directed by Laila Marrakchi in 2005. In 2006, Maxime was recognized by Variety as one of its Ten Cinematographers to Watch. Several other films have followed, including P2 directed by Franck Khalfoun, The Crazies by Breck Eisner, The Voices directed by Marjane Satrapi, The Other Side of the Door by Johannes Roberts and soon to be release Annabelle Creation by David F. Sandberg.