Biography

Alain Berbérian (2 July 1953 – 22 August 2017) was a French film director and writer of Armenian descent.

Born in Beirut to an Armenian father and a Greek mother, Berbérian spent his youth in Lebanon before finishing his studies in . He was the brother of cartoonist Charles Berberian. He began his career in the audiovisual field, working as an editor at Canal+.

His first feature film was the comedy La Cité de la peur, which was hit in . Based on a script by Les Nuls, the film describes a series of murders in Cannes. Berbérian returned in 1998 with Paparazzi, starring Vincent Lindon and Patrick Timsit. The film follows the life of a night watchman (Timsit) who is fired after being photographed at a soccer game, instead of being at his job. He then meets Michel (Lindon), who teaches him how to be a paparazzo.

In 2000, Berbérian directed Six-Pack, a thriller with Richard Anconina who stalks a serial-killer to the four corners of Paris. Returning in 2002 with the comedy Le Boulet, starring Gérard Lanvin and Benoît Poelvoorde, a prison guard (Poelvoorde) has to team up with a convict (Lanvin) to retrieve a lotto ticket from the latter.

Then in 2004, Berbérian paired Christian Clavier and Jean Reno in the comedy, The Corsican File, based on a comic book of the same name by René Pétillon, in which a detective is responsible for locating a man living in Corsica who is owed an inheritance. In 2007, he reunited Gérard Jugnot and Jean-Paul Rouve in L'Île aux trésors.

Berbérian died in Paris, , on 22 August 2017, at the age of 64.

Source: Article "Alain Berbérian" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.