Jacques Krier

Jacques Krier was born on February 6, 1926, in Nancy, France.[1][2][3] His parents were storekeepers.[4]

Krier co-founded the ciné-club de Nancy with Jean L'Hôte in his hometown as a teenager.[3] He graduated from the University of Nancy with a Bachelor of Laws and the University of Paris with a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy.[4] He subsequently attended film school at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques, later known as La Fémis.[3] Meanwhile, he joined the French Communist Party.[3] Moreover, with Stellio Lorenzi, he was the co-founder of the Syndicat français des réalisateurs de Télévision, a subgroup of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), a labor union in France.[3]

Krier started his career in television because the 1946 Blum–Byrnes agreement made it difficult for communists to work in cinema.[4] He joined the Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française in 1953, where he first worked as an assistant to Maurice Failevic.[4] He later worked on the newscast.[5]

Krier began directing documentaries in 1957 alongside Jean-Claude Bergeret with A la découverte des Français, a television series of 14 mini-documentaries about the everyday lives of French miners, fishermen, teachers, etc.[2][3] He directed Cinq colonnes à la une, another television series, from 1959 to 1968.[2][3] Some of it showed scenes of Arab villages in French Algeria.[5] With Pierre Tchernia, he directed 40 000 voisins, a 1960 documentary about the new HLMs built in Sarcelles.[5] In 1964, he directed Ouvriers noirs de Paris, a documentary about Malian immigrants in Paris, with scenes shot in their home country.[5] He also directed Mémoires d’un vieux quartier, a 1965 documentary about Ménilmontant with Gérard Chouchan.[5] After a two-year hiatus, he directed Les femmes aussi for television in 1970.[2][3][5] He subsequently directed Les Matinales – Paris de 5 à 7, a television series of mini-documentaries about the living conditions of janitors.[3]

Krier directed television films.[2][3] For example, he directed Un matin à Glisolles in 1962; it was about a young couple who run away without their parents's consent to be together.[5] Meanwhile, he directed documentaries for the CGT.[5]

Krier was the author of several novels and plays.[1] His 2000 novel, L’Idéale, won the Prix Roger Vailland.[6]

Krier died on August 24, 2008, in Digne-les-Bains.[1] On his death, journalist Marcel Trillat said he was "a pioneer of what we came to know as the social-poetical documentary".[2] His papers and films are held at the Institut national de l'audiovisuel.[5]

• Krier, Jacques (1979). La Jeanne d'Arc est rouillée : les enfants de Lorraine ... et les choses de la vie : document. Paris: Ramsay. ISBN 9782859561277. OCLC 6666921.
• Krier, Jacques (1991). Coup de jeunes : récit d'enquête. Paris: Messidor. ISBN 9782209064861. OCLC 463565677.
• Krier, Jacques (1998). Monsieur, ça vous embête de nous parler de votre travail? : Carvin à livres ouverts. Pantin: Le Temps des cerises. ISBN 9782841090884. OCLC 467962695.
• Krier, Jacques (2000). L'idéale. Pantin: Le Temps Des Cerises. ISBN 2841092364.
• Krier, Jacques (2005). Les drôles de voyages d'un camarade errant. Pantin: Le Temps des Cerises. ISBN 9782841095414. OCLC 470211541.

• Jacques Krier at IMDb