--- name: "Éric Rochant" canonical: "https://film.one/person/eric-rochant" roles: ["Director"] born: "24 February 1961" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "director" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-18T10:52:57.999799+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Éric Rochant Director. Born 24 February 1961 in Paris, France. ## Details - **Work:** Director - **Born:** 24 February 1961, Paris, France - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ric_Rochant, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2636752, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0733886/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/129433 ## Streaming the US now - **Apple TV:** [*The Bureau*](https://film.one/tv/the-bureau.md) (88) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Éric Rochant > Éric Rochant's spies fill in forms, sit in meetings about money and lie to the office psychologist, and he makes that as tense as any chase. *The Bureau* is the work; his films had been circling it since 1994, and it changed how French television is made. A man comes home from years abroad under a false name, and the first thing his employer does is sit him opposite a psychologist. Léa Drucker's Docteur Balmes reads faces for a living. Mathieu Kassovitz's Malotru has spent years arranging his so that nobody can. Éric Rochant lets the scene rest on that: two people in a room under strip lighting, one of them lying. It is his whole method in one set-up, and *The Bureau* (2015) keeps it going for fifty hours. He got there slowly. *Love Without Pity* (1989) was the first feature that made his name. The films after it were spy stories too, *The Patriots* (1994) and, much later, *Möbius* (2013) with Jean Dujardin and Cécile de France, and they did not do for him what the debut had. In between he directed episodes of *Mafiosa* (2008–2010), which we suspect taught him more than the features did about holding a story over hours rather than minutes. Then came the Bureau of Legends, written with Camille de Castelnau, Capucine Rochant and Jacques Audiard, ten episodes a season for five seasons from 27 April 2015, and produced with Alex Berger, who has been alongside him on five projects. What works is the refusal to hurry. The office is grey partitions, badge readers and a meeting about whether to spend money. Jean-Pierre Darroussin's Henri Duflot protects his agents by looking as if he is not, and Florence Loiret Caille's Marie-Jeanne Duthilleul says almost nothing and misses less. Rochant knows the real codes of the service and uses them, and the research shows in how little anyone explains. We were more frightened by Malotru filling in an expenses form for a hotel where he met a woman he was not supposed to meet than by anything in the series with a gun in it, because in this office the form is what gets you caught. He ran the series as creator, lead writer, director and producer at once, the American showrunner's job, which French television had not really had before, and the result is the best argument for it. The one stretch we thought lost its footing was the end of the fifth season, and those are the episodes he handed to Jacques Audiard. Some viewers were cross about the handover; we would only note that the wobble and the absence coincide. Next is *Bandi* (2026), set in Martinique and made with his daughter Capucine Rochant. Sun, for once. We will see whether the method works outdoors. ## Biography Éric Rochant is a French film director and screenwriter. He was born on 24 February 1961 in Paris and trained at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC). His early feature films include *Love Without Pity* (1989) and *The Patriots* (1994). He later directed *Möbius* (2013). Rochant created, wrote and directed the espionage series *The Bureau* (2015–2020), serving also as producer and showrunner. He has worked on the forthcoming series *Bandi* (2026). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *The Bureau* (2015), Fi1m 88, Director, Writer, Creator — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-bureau.md) ## Complete filmography (19) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Bandi* (2026), series, Screenplay, Producer, Creator - *Quelqu’un devrait interdire les dimanches après-midi* (2026), series, Producer - *The Agency* (2024), series, Original Series Creator - *Everything Is Fine* (2023), series, Director, Producer - *Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets* (2017), as Captain Welcoming Palm Müret - *The Bureau* (2015), series, Director, Writer, Creator — Fi1m 88, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-bureau.md) - *Möbius* (2013), Director, Writer - *Mafiosa* (2006), series, Director, Writer - *School for All* (2006), Director, Writer - *Total Western* (2000), Director, Writer - *Long Live the Republic* (1997), Director, Screenplay - *Anna Oz* (1996), Director, Writer - *The Patriots* (1994), Director, Screenplay - *In the Eyes of the World* (1991), Director, Writer - *Love Without Pity* (1989), Director, Writer - *Présence féminine* (1987), Writer, Director - *Comme les doigts de la main* (1985), Director, Writer - *French Lovers* (1985), Director - *Cancel*, series, Producer ## Gallery - ![Éric Rochant](https://film.one/media/person/979904/gallery-255272377a58.jpg) Éric Rochant — Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Eric_Rochant_2013.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Éric Rochant présentant "Les Patriotes" à la Cinémathèque française en mai 2023.](https://film.one/media/person/979904/gallery-6a556f3de0c8.jpg) Éric Rochant présentant "Les Patriotes" à la Cinémathèque française en mai 2023. — ManoSolo13241324, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/%C3%89ric_Rochant_2023_1.jpg/1280px-%C3%89ric_Rochant_2023_1.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Éric Rochant présentant "Les Patriotes" à la Cinémathèque française en mai 2023.](https://film.one/media/person/979904/gallery-f6d80e07e968.jpg) Éric Rochant présentant "Les Patriotes" à la Cinémathèque française en mai 2023. — ManoSolo13241324, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/%C3%89ric_Rochant_2023_2.jpg/1280px-%C3%89ric_Rochant_2023_2.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Éric Rochant](https://film.one/media/person/979904/gallery-35766e57fa9d.jpg) Éric Rochant — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Other awards — 3 won, 3 nominated - César Award for Best Film 1990: César Award for Best Film (nominated), for *Love Without Pity* - César Award for Best First Film 1990: César Award for Best First Film (won), for *Love Without Pity* - César Award for Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation 1990: César Award for Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation (nominated), for *Love Without Pity* - Young European Film of the Year 1990: Young European Film of the Year (nominated), for *Love Without Pity* - Louis Delluc Prize 1989: Louis Delluc Prize (won), for *Love Without Pity* - César Award for Best Fiction Short Film 1988: César Award for Best Fiction Short Film (won) *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/eric-rochant