Biography
Marcel Camus (21 April 1912 – 13 January 1982) was a French film director. He studied art and intended to become an art teacher, but World War II interrupted his plans; he spent part of the war in a German prisoner-of-war camp. After the war his uncle, the novelist Roland Dorgelès, introduced him to several filmmakers, and he worked as an assistant to directors including Jacques Feyder, Luis Buñuel and Jacques Becker.
Camus is best known for Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro, 1959), which he directed and in which he appeared as Ernesto. The film, an adaptation of a play by Vinícius de Moraes set in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro during Carnival, won the Palme d’Or at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1960. His first feature was Mort en fraude (1957).
