Born in Paris, she spent all of her childhood in different African countries. In 1971, she graduated from IDHEC and, two years later, she produced her first short film with the Great Magic Circus at the Arles Festival. She stayed with them for a while, collaborating on projects by Jerome Savary. Meanwhile, she shot several short films produced by Pathe Television, in the "Chronicles of France" series. During the seventies and eighties, she worked as assistant producer to Dusan Makavejev, Robert Enrico, Jacques Rivette, Costa-Gavras, Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch, among others. The year 1988 marked the debut of her first feature, Chocolat, followed in 1989, by the documentary Man No Run. Five more noteworthy films followed. Claire Denis knows how to find an original voice for each of her films; her entire oeuvre attests to this fact.