Born in London, she studied Arab and Berber ethnology, before taking up editing courses at the Cinémathèque d'Alger. She made her first self-taught short films in the late 70s. Her time at the Ateliers Varan proved decisive, as she discovered the virtues of direct cinema and decided to move into documentary film. Alongside her work as an editor, she made several short films and then signed up for a series of dramas for the small screen, ==Scènes de ménage==. A year later, with ==Récréations== (documentary), she filmed human comedies in the playground of a nursery school. The film was released in 1997. Parallely, the filmmaker made a name for herself in the documentary world with ==Coûte que coûte==. In 1997, she made her first feature film, ==Sinon oui==, inspired by a true story and presented in Cannes as part of Cinémas en France. Drawing on authentic stories that testify her taste for romance, she filmed her daughter's flirtations ==(800 km de difference==) and the story of a lifetime (==Mimi==). In 2006, she returned to the realm of pure fiction with ==Ça brûle==, presented at the Directors' Fortnight, followed by ==Les Bureaux de Dieu==, drawing a thin line between documentary and fiction. We find this characteristic again in ==Gare du Nord== in 2013 and ==Géographie humaine==, where the filmmaker compares our passage on earth to a passage through a railway station. In her acclaimed documentary L==e Bois dont les rêves sont faits==, Claire Simon films the Bois de Vincennes as a place where people come to find refuge and invent their own utopia. Her documentary ==Le Concours== was awarded the prize for best cinema documentary at the 2016 Venice Biennale. In 2023, she directed the documentary film ==Notre corps==, which traces the lives of women in hospital throughout their lives. After its theatrical release, the film was shortlisted for the César Awards in 2024, as well as a number of French and international festivals. She has been a member and trainer at the Ateliers Varan since 1993, and was head of the directing department at the Fémis for eleven years.