Nicolas & Bruno

Nicolas and Bruno began writing and directing music videos and commercials in the 1990s, including an award-winning commercial for chocolate bar "Daim" written with Frédéric Beigbeder for Young & Rubicam. They then worked with French TV producer Thierry Ardisson elaborating the concept and creating the design of the TV channel Free One.

In 1997, they created Amour, gloire et débats d'idées, a series of sketches broadcast on Le Vrai Journal' of Canal +, in which they overdub the characters of a Venezuelan telenovela tearing each other to pieces about French current political events.

In September 1998, the first Message à caractère informatif is broadcast on the famous TV show Nulle part ailleurs of Canal +: a series of 318 sketches that became cult, where the two authors-directors overdubbed 1970s executives from real corporate films.[2] Featuring in particular Jean-Christian Ranu, Didier Leguélec and other Berthier, fictional characters of a gray and bureaucratic world, symbolized by their fetish company, the COGIP.

They signed the film adaptation (screenplay and dialogue) of Frédéric Beigbeder's novel 99 francs and directed Le Bureau for Canal +, adapted from the British TV series The Office, starring François Berléand.

In 2007, they wrote and directed their first feature film, Me Two,[3] a comedy starring Daniel Auteuil, Alain Chabat and Marina Foïs, produced by Alain Chabat (Chez Wam, released on June 18, 2008).

In October 2008, they wrote and directed the music-video, Figures Imposed, for Julien Doré. Figures Imposées was described as a 'super kitsch' leap somewhere between Fame and Dirty Dancing, with Catherine Deneuve, Eglantine Rembauville, Clément Sibony and Christian Morin.

In May 2009, they directed a non for-profit humanitarian music-video in favor of the traders in difficulty: Save The Traders, shot with thirty real traders from international market places.[4]

On July 7. 2009, Canal + gave them carte blanche for an all-night show, The Night of COGIP, on the occasion of the first broadcast of their feature film, Me Two. The Night of COGIP turned out to be a six-hour program live from the headquarters of COGIP, including Messages (purportedly) à caractère informatif, office musicals, economic telenovelas, a making of the Messages à caractère informatif, exclusive lives, office dance classes, an American series, and an interview with psychiatrist Christophe Dejours.

On July 10, 2013, they released their second feature film for the cinema as writers and directors: The Big Bad Wolf[5] is a very personal reading of the famous traditional tale The Three Little Pigs starring Benoît Poelvoorde, Fred Testot, Kad Merad, Charlotte Le Bon, Valérie Donzelli, Zabou Breitman and Léa Drucker, produced by Eric Altmayer and Nicolas Altmayer (Mandarin Cinema).

On November 4, 2014, as part of its 30th anniversary, Canal+ place orders of original programs to some of its historical key figures. The channel offered that Nicolas & Bruno made a feature film about Porn, one of the cornerstones of the famous encrypted channel's heyday. In response, the business partners created In Search of The Ultra-Sex[6] a 62 minutes overdubbed match-up movie based on the same principle as Message à caractère informatif.[7] A hilarious comedy where the two directors perform all voices, providing editing, sound effects, produced by Arno Moria and David Frenkel (Synecdoche Films, Paris). But the fate of the film went far beyond a special TV broadcast and met an unexpected success in France.[8][9]

On November 6 and 10, 2014, Nicolas & Bruno were invited by the Parisian Modern Art Museum Palais de Tokyo for 2 evenings dedicated to their works.[10] Two screenings of In Search of The Ultra-Sex took place followed by a Master Class in front of an audience of 450 people.[11]

On December 11, 2014, the ARP (Actors, Directors and Producers Corporation) headed by Michel Hazanavicius organized a special double screening of Michel Hazanavicius's La Classe américaine and a new version of the Ultra-Sex for the stage.[12]

In March 2015, the Festival International du Film de Fribourg featured the film in their Midnight Screenings. Nicolas & Bruno provided additional experiences for the attendees, with choreography of Daft-Peonk Robot (a character of the film) and a workshop allowing the public to give a try at dubbing extracts of the Ultra-Sex. This was the launch of a great tour: the Ultra-Sex-Tour.[13] It was also featured in several other French theatres such as Lyon (outdoors at Transborder), Amiens, Poitiers, Marseilles, Metz, Montpellier, Villeneuve d'Ascq, Gueret, Lausanne, Avignon, Dunkerque, Toulouse, and the Luminor.[14][15]

On June 5, 2015, an event was organized around the film at the mythical The Max Linder Panorama cinema, with animation provided by the two directors, projection of the Message à caractère informatif fake making-of, and dubbing demonstration live by the famous French porn star Tabatha Cash and dubbing French actors Patrick Poivey (Bruce Willis) Lionel Henry (Eddie Murphy) Eric Missoffe (Scooby-Doo) and Gilbert Levy (Moe The Simpsons ), in front of 650 people. It was a sold-out event.

In Search Of The Ultra-Sex (subtitled version of A Research of Ultra-Sex) was projected on September 30, 2015 at the Fantastic Fest in Austin (TX) in the United States where it has been selected[16][17][18] and on October 3 at the American Cinematheque, in the famous Hollywood Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, during the Beyond Fest.[19] The film was also selected by the Ithaca International Film Festival of New York,[20] the Grolandais International Film Festival of Toulouse, the Buttocks Film Festival of Paris (as closing film), the Bordeaux Independent International Film Festival, the Französische Filmtage Tübingen of Stuttgart and the Zinema Zombie Fest of Bogota,[21] for exceptional midnight screenings out of competition with the intervention of the directors.

In October 2015, the mythical Parisian theater Studio Galande featured In Search of the Ultra-Sex.[22]

On October 30, 2015, Vampires in privacy, the French version of Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement's mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows, was released digitally. Wild Bunch gave Nicolas & Bruno carte blanche for the adaptation: a completely rewritten "French Version Originale", both faithful and nuts, for which French actors Alexandre Astier, Fred Testot, Bruno Salomone, Julie Ferrier, Zabou Breitman and Jeremie Elkaïm join the two dubbers-authors' voices.

• Bruno Lavaine at IMDb
• Nicolas Charlet at IMDb