Jean-Xavier de Lestrade has directed more than 10 films and is one of France’s most recognized documentary filmmaker. After obtaining degrees in both journalism and law, de Lestrade created a news production company and, in 1992, began directing documentary films for international audiences. The next eight years saw de Lestrade win major European film awards for work such as A White and Pure Australia (Gold FIPA) and Of Justice And Men, a heart-wrenching look at the trials that took place following the Rwandan genocide, which won the prestigious Prix Albert Londres.
In 1999, Jean-Xavier co-founded Maha Productions, and three years later received an Academy Award for his film Murder On A Sunday Morning. Hailed as “a brilliant piece of work” and “as tense and exciting as any fictitious whodunit,” Murder continues to be broadcast worldwide. His next film, the critically acclaimed eight-part documentary series The Staircase, for which he received the IDA award for “Limited Series,” a Peabody and a DuPont award, has been called “one of the best TV programs I have ever seen,” (Associated Press) and described by the New York Times as “....brilliantly conceived; reported, filmed... a masterpiece.” Since 2006, Jean-Xavier wrote and directed three fiction films, Welcome Home, The Silent Daughter, and A Vanishing Lady.
The story of novelist Michael Peterson, convicted of murdering his wife Kathleen in 2001, takes yet another strange turn as he gets his shot at an appeal and a possible overturn of his guilty verdict, captured in the two-part sequel to the riveting documentary ‘The Staircase.’ Director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade offers his take on Peterson’s story and the possibility of justice finally being served.
