François Truffaut

François Truffaut was a French film director and critic, born in 1932. He left school at 14 and began working, and while still a teenager he started a film club, where he met the critic André Bazin, who became his protector. In 1953 he published his first film criticism in Les Cahiers du Cinema; there he and like-minded friends argued for what they called the author policy. He made a short film in 1954 and two years later assisted Roberto Rossellini on projects that were later abandoned. In 1957 he founded the production company Les Films du Carrosse, named after Jean Renoir's The Golden Coach (1952), and directed Les Mistons (1957), considered the real first step of his filmmaking. His first feature, The 400 Blows (1959), was a huge success and marked the beginning of the New Wave in France. His recurring subjects included passion, women, childhood and faithfulness. He died in 1984.