Sylvain Chomet

Sylvain Chomet was born in 1963 in Maison-Laffitte, France. Passionate about drawing, he completed an Arts degree in 1982 and then obtained a diploma from the prestigious comic-strip studio at Angouleme. At this time, he published his first comic strip, The Secret of the Dragonflies, along with an illustrated adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel, Bug-Jargal. Moving to London to work as an animator at the Richard Purdum studio, he established a freelance practice making commercials for clients such as Swissair and Renault. He began work on his first animated project, THE OLD WOMAN AND THE PIGEONS, which won a stream of prizes and an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short in 1998. In 1997, his book Ugly, Poor and Sick won at the Angouleme Comic Strip Festival. His first feature, THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE, was presented out of competition in Cannes 2003 taking the world by storm and being nominated for two Oscars, including Best Animated Feature. Chomet’s next project THE ILLUSIONIST (2010) is based on an unproduced script by Jacques Tati, and features an animated version of Tati.