Jean-Pierre Mocky

Jean-Pierre Mocky (6 July 1929 – 8 August 2019), pseudonym of Jean-Paul Adam Mokiejewski, was a French film director, actor, screenwriter and producer. Mocky was born in Nice, France to Polish immigrant parents, Jeanne Zylinska and Adam Mokiejewski. His father was Jewish and his mother was Catholic. Mocky appeared as an actor in the 1955 film Gli Sbandati and in many other movies, including some of those he also directed (Solo, L'albatros, L'Ombre d'une chance, Un Linceul n'a pas de poches).

His 1987 film Le Miraculé was entered into the 37th Berlin International Film Festival. He began as an actor in the cinema and theater. In particular, he played in Jean Dréville's Les Casse-pieds (1948), Jean Cocteau's Orphée (1950) and Bernard Borderie's The Mask of the Gorilla (1957). But it was especially in Italy that he became famous, thanks to his role in I vinti by Michelangelo Antonioni.

After working as an assistant with Luchino Visconti on Senso (1954) and Federico Fellini on La strada (1954), he wrote his first film, La Tête contre les murs (1959) and planned to direct it himself, but the producer preferred to entrust the task to Georges Franju. He went on to direct the following year with Les Dragueurs (1959). Since then, he has never stopped shooting.