Biography
Eli Lotar (born Eliazar Lotar Theodorescu) was a Romanian-French photographer, cinematographer and film director. Born in Paris in 1905, he grew up partly in Bucharest before returning to France in the mid-1920s. He apprenticed with photographer Germaine Krull and became known for his work in the Parisian avant-garde, including stark images of slaughterhouses published in the journal Documents.
Lotar specialised in documentary camerawork, collaborating with Joris Ivens, Jean Painlevé and others. He served as cinematographer on Luis Buñuel’s Land Without Bread (1933) and as still photographer on Jean Renoir’s A Day in the Country (1946). He also directed the short Aubervilliers (1946), a study of suburban poverty.
His other credits include camera work on films by Marc Allégret and Pierre Prévert. Lotar died in Paris in 1969.
