Hervé Le Roux obtained a doctorate in law and economics after studying at Essec. He worked for the town hall of Paris before devoting himself to cinema, his real passion. From the 1980s, he collaborated with Cahiers du Cinéma. He participated in the cinema program of the Festival d'Automne in Paris between 1984 and 1987.
Before devoting himself to his own productions, he worked as an assistant on films, including Alain Bergala's, Incognito. Grand Bonheur, his first feature film, opened the Cinemas in France section at the Cannes Film Festival in 1993. It portrays a group of students at the end of their studies.
In 1996, he directed Reprise, a documentary which refers to the events of May 68. He tries to find a young worker who refuses to return to work in images filmed by Idhec students in La Reprise du travail at the Wonder factories . These filmed moments will become the symbol of the revolting working class, divided between a reformist vision and a leftist vision. He sets out to find the protagonists of this film thirty years later. He will not find the young woman, but only the others. The film, released in a small cinema in Paris, the Saint-André des Arts, sparked much debate between the unions. This documentary was presented at the Berlinale in 1997 (Forum section) and won the grand prize at the Belfort festival, as well as the Sadoul prize. He was cited as one of the strongest on the job, according to Les Inrocks.
Le Roux then directed a short documentary Sortis Factory, on Renault-Vilvoorde. In 2001, he attempted a return to fiction with his film They Call It Spring, a vaudeville with a burlesque tone and kidnapped with his muse Marilyne Canto. This film does not meet with success. While trying to make a new film, he became a consultant until 2016 for the association Emergence, alongside Élisabeth Depardieu, an association whose goal is to promote the work of young directors on the journey of their first feature film.
Before he died, he was working on a new film, Portrait of Madame Manet on a Blue Sofa, produced by Les Films ici. He was found dead of a heart attack on July 26 at his home in Poitiers where he had just moved.
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