Born in Paris, France. A former still photographer, he turned to directing short subjects in the late 1940s, soon acquiring an international reputation for the poetic quality of his short and medium-length films involving the fantasy world of children. His first film was an adaptation of Jacques Prévert's children's book Bim, le petit áne (1950). Both his WHITE MANE (1952) / CRIN BLANC and THE RED BALLOON (1956) / LE BALLON ROUGE received a grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the latter also winning an American Academy Award. In the early 1960s he turned to feature length films with considerably less success, then retreated to documentary shorts. He was killed in a helicopter crash while shooting a documentary near Teheran. That film, THE LOVERS' WIND / LE VENT DES AMOREUX, a visually stunning helicopter tour of Iran, was later edited from his notes and was nominated for an Oscar® as best feature documentary for the Academy Awards for 1978.  Writing (Best Screenplay original) 1956: LE BALLON ROUGE  Nominated for Documentary (Features) 1978: LE VENT DES AMOREUX - Producer 2 nominations, 1 Award