Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Born: 1955
Where: Roanne, France

The self-taught director first made a name for himself with the surreal sci-fi romantic comedy Delicatessen.

The 1992 movie, co-directed with Marc Caro, landed Cesars (French Oscars) for best new film, best script, best editing and best production design.

Jeunet has gone on to direct such high-profile projects as sci-fi horror sequel Alien: Resurrection and the Oscar-nominated Amelie.

After directing TV commercials and videos, he met designer Marc Caro with whom he made two animated shorts - L'Evasion and Le Manege.

For their third film - La Bunker De La Derniere Rafale - they spent a year fashioning every detail including costumes and design.

The movie surreally detailed rising paranoia among soldiers trapped underground (the theme would be revisited in A Very Long Engagement).

The film also marked their first collaboration with Gilles Adrien who later wrote the story of their two features.

Their debut feature Delicatessen was followed with the ambitious The City of Lost Children, a project they had starred ten years before.

The movie, starring Hellboy star Ron Perlman, told the dark story of a society which stole children's dreams.

In 1997, Jeunet made his solo feature debut in Hollywood with Alien: Resurrection - the fourth episode of the series and starring Winona Ryder as well as Sigourney Weaver.

Caro followed him as a design supervisor but Jeunet brought with him a little army of his usual collaborators.

Switching styles completely, Jeunet directed Audrey Tautou in the critical and box office hit Amelie.

Nominated for five Oscars, including best foreign language film, it told the story of a naive Parisian waitress helping people out.

In 2004, Jeunet reteamed with Tautou for A Very Long Engagment, a drama about a girl seeking her courtmartialed husband during The Great War.