Jaco Van Dormael - Belgian Director and Writer - Toto the Hero, The Eighth Day, and Mr. Nobody

Jaco made his feature-length debut in 1991 with Toto The Hero, a tale about a man who believes his life was "stolen" from him when he was switched at birth.   Toto The Hero gained wide critical acclaim, winning both the César Award for best foreign film and the Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Jaco’s second feature film The Eighth Day is a story of a young man with Down syndrome, played by Pascal Duquenne, who lives in a mental institution and the unlikely relationship he forges with a businessman, played by Daniel Auteuil.  Both actors won awards at Cannes for their performances, and the film was nominated for a Golden Globe among other awards. More recently, Jaco wrote and directed Mr. Nobody, starring Jared Leto, a surreal exploration of freewill as Nemo Nobody experiences different lives depending on what choices he made as a boy.    Jaco’s films have some strong common themes between them.  Jaco’s films make distinctive use of naive voiceover and examine the world from an innocent perspective.  The films are often slightly surreal and potray death not as a tragedy, but as a happy moving on.