Considered by many the great European film music composer of this century and the natural successor to Maurice Jarre, Alexandre Desplat (Paris, 1961) has two Oscars in his career (for The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Shape of Water) and ten nominations – and since Sunday also the Master of Cinema of the Atlàntida Mallorca Film Fest –, but he continues to feel uncomfortable with praise. “I am not the best at anything, just a composer with little time to write music for some film,” Desplat protests. “It’s curious, because most composers in the history of cinema ended up in cinema by accident: Alex North, Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota... They all wanted to be classical composers. But I always wanted to work in cinema”.