The actor and director André Wilms died on Wednesday in a hospital in Paris, his agent, Sébastien Perrolat, said on Thursday. He was 74 years old. The causes of his death were not revealed by his family.
His agent specified that the artist had agreed to several upcoming engagements.
Actor of theater and cinema, director on the boards, André Wilms made himself known to the general public by playing Monsieur Le Quesnoy in Life is a long calm riverthe first film by Etienne Chatiliez released in 1988, then film buffs thanks to the tragicomic films of the Finnish Aki Kaurismäki.
Lunar characters
Together they shot, between 1992 and 2017, The bohemian life, Leningrad Cowboys meet Moses, Juha, Le Havre and The Other Side of Hope. Films marked by lunar characters and poetic dialogues, with a certain tenderness for the characters.
In Le Havre, André Wilms was a shoe shiner, reaching out to a young undocumented African. The film was awarded the 2011 Louis-Delluc prize, considered the Goncourt of cinema.
André Wilms laughed when asked about the operation of a set whose boss does not speak the language: “Great directors don’t need to talk! he said to me: “Play like an old gentleman. Don’t run. Don’t spill anything…” Everyone runs in movies these days. »