Draft:Benoît Chieux

Benoît Chieux, born in Lille in 1969, is a French animation filmmaker who works primarily for the Folimage studio, where he has co-directed several short and feature-length films. A former student of the Emile Cohl school, Tomi Ungerer class (1987-1990). In an interview with Animation World Network, he explained that Folimage studio films tend to be handcrafted, sometimes with the help of the 2D animation software Toon Boom Harmony, as well as After Effects for compositing, but that purely technological effects tend to age poorly. His animated short film Tigres à la queue leu leu (Tigers Tied Up in One Rope), based on the illustrated book of the same name by the South Korean artist Kwoon Moon-hee, was nominated for the César Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 41st César Awards ceremony in 2016. His third short film as director, Le Jardin de minuit (Midnight's Garden) (2017), was also nominated in the same category at the 43rd César Awards ceremony in 2018. In 2023, he released his second feature film as director and screenwriter (after Aunt Hilda! in 2014), Sirocco et le Royaume des courants d'air (Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds), which opened the 2023 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award. The feature film was released in theaters on December 13, 2023.