Pitof

Born: France

The former visual effects expert was thrust into the limelight with the big screen version of comic book heroine Catwoman.

Born Jean-Christophe Comar but nickamed Pitof by friends, he began his professional career in Paris in 1979 working on corporate adverts.

He then branched out into musical scoring, software design and graphic design, creating entire visual graphics packages with titles and logos for a variety of French television stations.

He began to experiment with special effects to enhance client film campaigns and was hired to work on the off-kilter French comedy Delicatessen.

Work followed with ith France’s leading directors, including Jean-Marie Poirè (Les Visiteurs), Jean-Jacques Beneix, Etienne Chatillez, Claude Miller, Mathieu Kassovitz and Luc Besson.

International credits include work for Wim Wenders and Lars Van Trier.

In 1997 he was given responsibility for co-directing the special effects for Alien: Resurrection, directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet of Delicatessen.

He made his directorial debut with the dark fantasy Vidocq set in 1830s Paris with Gerard Depardieu playing a French Sherlock Holmes.

In 2004, he crossed over to Hollywood to helm the live action movie Catwoman with Halle Berry and Sharon Stone.