A multi-talented and multi-faceted artist, Stefan Liberski is in turn a writer, actor, author and filmmaker. After starting out with Canal +, he turned to the cinema and directed three features dealing with characters confronted with necessarily overwhelming rites of passage.
Stefan Liberski's cinematic destiny began in 1979 in Cinecitta where he worked as a volunteer assistant on the set of Federico Fellini's LA CITTA DELLA DONNE. A talented artist working on several different fronts, he published his first novel as a writer, "Beau Fixe", in 1986. A few years later, he was the co-founder on Canal + Belgium of Les Snuls, the bastard Belgian little brothers of the French comedy team Les Nuls, who would appear on TV until the middle of the 90s in this form before a number of special revivals. At the end of the 90s, he switched to directing for Canal +, making a number of medium-length films.
In 2005, he directed his first feature, BUNKER PARADISE, starring Jean-Paul Rouve as the odious John Deveau, the disenchanted son of a millionaire who spends his time wallowing in debauchery to spice up his life. A narcissistic monster and corrupt product of high society where money rules everything, John decides to toy with Mimmo, a young taxi-driver dreaming of fortune and fame, like a cat playing with a mouse before devouring it whole. "A poor person has desires, hopes, and wants to get rich" and, for a rich kid who no longer dreams, Mimmo is the perfect target. John is not satisfied with his own process of self-destruction, he needs to drag others down with him.
In 2009, Stefan Liberski returned to film direction with the TV-movie EN CHANTIER, MONSIEUR TANNER, shot for Canal +. He once again worked with Jean-Paul Rouve, again playing a rich kid who, on inheriting an abandoned manor house, is going to gradually sink into loneliness and poverty because of restoration work that turns out to be a disaster. The film is loosely based on Jean-Paul Dubois's novel, "Vous plaisantez, Monsieur Tanner".
In 2013, he worked with Versus on BABY BALLOON, the story of a plump young girl with a great voice and tons of charm. A singer in a rock band, she is secretly in love with the guitarist, Vince, who is also her childhood friend. When another girl, Anita, older and slimmer, turns up in the life of the group, Bici decides to get rid of this rival at any cost. However, she quickly realizes that the true problem is not what she thinks it is. A tale of love and adolescence, BABY BALLOON is nonetheless marked by the often caustic spirit of its director, notably thanks to the character of Bici, whose spontaneity and flaws bring a great deal of freshness to the story.
The following year, Liberski came up with another initiatory tale and returned to Japan, a cinematic fantasy partly realized in BUNKER PARADISE. TOKYO FIANCEE is an adaptation of Amélie Nothomb's novel, "Ni d’Eve ni d’Adam", the first-person account of a young girl who wants to become Japanese and who, failing to truly achieve this, becomes a woman in the process. In the course of the film, we follow Amélie as she drifts through Tokyo and ends up giving very private French lessons to Rinri, a young Japanese man. Between humour and emotion, tenderness and acidity, TOKYO FIANCEE has the evanescent lightness of adolescent love stories, transcended by the grace and ingenuousness of Pauline Etienne. This far from simple trip to Tokyo resembles a rite of passage for young Amélie who will discover herself on discovering love.
