Jacques Bufnoir

Noted for his versatility and prolific nature, production designer Jacques Bufnoir has worked on over 70 features since 1975. Trained at IDHEC in Paris, he assisted Willy Holt on Stanley Donen's "Staircase" before creating his own designs for domestic hits like "La Boum." He soon acquired a reputation for overseas settings with "Circle of Deceit" (Beirut), "La Chévre" (Mexico) and "Descente aux enfers" (Haiti), while he later ventured into the Maghreb and Russia for "Viva Algeria" and "Hitman." He also became adept at period trappings, recreating Revolutionary Brittany for "Chouans!," 1830s Paris for the killer biopic "Lacenaire," and the battlefields of the Seven Years' War for "Fanfan la tulipe." Coming into the 20th century, he recaptured the Occupation era for Diane Kurys's "Coup de Foudre" and Régis Wargnier's "Une Femme française," and won a César for his blend of colonial chic in the same director's "Indochine." Subsequently, Bufnoir's most enduring relationships have been with Claude Lelouch and Luc Besson. For the former, he romanticized the war years for "Édith et Marcel" and "Les Misérables" and achieved a modish contemporaneity for "A Man and a Woman, 20 Years Later," "Men, Women: A User's Manual" and "Chance or Coincidence," while for the latter, he consistently reinvented Paris in the Jet Li vehicles "Kiss of the Dragon" and "Unleashed," the crime actioners "Wasabi," "Taxi 3" and "From Paris With Love" and the romantic drama "Angel-A."