**Michael Haneke** (Munich, 1942) is an acclaimed Austrian film director and screenwriter, renowned for his rigorous, intellectual, and often provocative style. His cinema explores with cold lucidity themes such as latent violence, bourgeois alienation, media criticism, and the disintegration of family ties, often questioning the viewer's role and expectations.

Among his most significant works are the disturbing *Funny Games* (1997), the psychological drama *La Pianiste* (2001), the enigmatic thriller *Caché* (2005), and his two Palme d'Or winning films at Cannes: the bleak *Das weiße Band* (2009) and the poignant *Amour* (2012), the latter also awarded the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Haneke is considered one of the masters of contemporary auteur cinema.