Joachim Lafosse graduated from Institut des arts de diffusion in 2001 and already made a name for himself by winning the Best Short Film Award at the Namur Film Festival that same year for his graduation film, Tribu. His career as a filmmaker was launched in 2004 when he directed his first feature film, Folie privée, the story of a painful conjugal separation, and wrote the screenplay for L'Autre by Benoît Mariage. The following year, he participated in the Atelier du Festival de Cannes, with Révolte intime, a project that remained unfinished, and then devoted himself to directing two films that were released in France in 2007: Ça rend heureux, in which Joachim Lafosse reunited with his favorite actor Kris Cuppens, and Nue Propriété, a family drama presented at the 2006 Venice Film Festival and starring the Renier brothers and Isabelle Huppert. In 2008, the Belgian filmmaker directed another of his compatriots, Jonathan Zaccaï, for the disturbing film Élève libre, which made an impression at the Directors' Fortnight.

We had to wait until 2012 to see his new feature film, À perdre la raison, a drama about a true story in which a mother murders her children. For the occasion, the director surrounded himself with a prestigious cast composed of Niels Arestrup, Tahar Rahim and Émilie Dequenne. Three years later, Joachim Lafosse released Les Chevaliers blancs, an ambitious film again inspired by reality, since it is about the Zoe's Ark affair, which damaged France's diplomatic relations with Chad. Shortly thereafter, the filmmaker returned to one of his favorite themes, the couple in crisis, with L'Économie du couple, starring Bérénice Bejo and Cédric Kahn. The film was presented at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival in the Directors' Fortnight. His latest film, Les Intranquilles is presented in competition at the Cannes Film Festival 2021.