Born in Paris in 1961, Benoit Delhomme spent most of his childhood in Cherbourg, Normandy, much of it in his homemade darkroom experimenting in black & white stills photography. Between 1980 and 1982 Delhomme studied cinematography under the inspirational tutelage of Cesar Chiabaud (Robert Bresson’s favourite camera operator) at the Louis Lumière School in Paris.
In 1992 he shot his first feature film, The Scent of the Green Papaya, with the Vietnamese first time director Tran Ahn Hung. The film won the Camera d’Or Award at Cannes and was also nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film. In 1994, Benoit re-teamed with Tran Ahn Hung on Cyclo, which won the Golden Lion at Venice. In 1996, Benoit received a Cesar nomination for Best Cinematography for his work on Agnes Merlet’s Artemisa. Between 1997 and 1999 Delhomme worked outside France, collaborating twice with Mike Figgis on The Loss of Sexual Innocence and Miss Julie and with David Mamet on The Winslow… read more
Born in Paris in 1961, Benoit Delhomme spent most of his childhood in Cherbourg, Normandy, much of it in his homemade darkroom experimenting in black & white stills photography. Between 1980 and 1982 Delhomme studied cinematography under the inspirational tutelage of Cesar Chiabaud (Robert Bresson’s favourite camera operator) at the Louis Lumière School in Paris.
In 1992 he shot his first feature film, The Scent of the Green Papaya, with the Vietnamese first time director Tran Ahn Hung. The film won the Camera d’Or Award at Cannes and was also nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film. In 1994, Benoit re-teamed with Tran Ahn Hung on Cyclo, which won the Golden Lion at Venice. In 1996, Benoit received a Cesar nomination for Best Cinematography for his work on Agnes Merlet’s Artemisa. Between 1997 and 1999 Delhomme worked outside France, collaborating twice with Mike Figgis on The Loss of Sexual Innocence and Miss Julie and with David Mamet on The Winslow Boy.
1999 and 2002 he worked with Benoit Jacquot, first on Sade and then Adolphe. In 2000, Anthony Minghella asked Benoit to work with him on a short art film – Play – an adaptation of the Samuel Beckett play and part of a season of Beckett short films for Channel 4.
In 2001, Delhomme won the Special Grand Jury Prize for Cinematography at the Chicago Film Festival for his work on the critically acclaimed Taiwanese film What Time Is It There? In 2004, he lit Michael Radford’s adaptation of The Merchant of Venice, starring Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons and in 2005 he won the Australian Film Institute’s Best Cinematography award for his work on John Hillcoat’s acclaimed Australian western, The Proposition. He then went onto to work with Anthony Minghella again on Breaking and Entering and Al Pacino on Salomaybe. His most recent credits include The Boy in Striped Pyjamas for director Mark Herman and 1408 and Shanghai for Mikael Hafström. —Cannes Film Festival
