Fanny Bastien

Fanny Bastien (née Meunier; born 13 December 1961 in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany) is a French actress. At the age of 15, Bastien left home to study at a regional dance conservatory and, the following year, joined the Académie Fratellini. She later took acting classes by Véra Gregh, John Strasberg and Jack Waltzer. She began her acting career in 1980 under her birth name Fanny Meunier with a small role in Tendres Cousines, a soft-core eotic film by David Hamilton. Shen then portrayed a young pregnant high school student in the comedy Le bahut va craquer (1981) alongside Michel Galabru, Claude Jade, Darry Cowl and Dany Carrel. She later adopted the stage name Fanny Bastien and secured the lead role as the title character in the three-part television film Dorothée, danseuse de corde (1983), adapted from the novel of the same name by Maurice Leblanc about a young tightrope walker in a traveling circus.Bastien acted regularly through the 1980s, often playing leading roles, navigating between auteur films and mainstream works alongside, among others, Gérard Jugnot, Richard Berry and Bernard Giraudeau, in the films Pinot simple flic, Urgence and Poussière d'ange. Her screen appearances declined in the mid-1990s. However, she continues to act occasionally, including a secondary recurring role in the Canal+ series Braquo in 2009–2011 and in two episodes of the France 2 series Astrid et Raphaëlle in 2020.Bastien presides over the Festival du Film Insolite in Rennes-le-Château, which she founded in 2015.