Jean Vigo

Jean Vigo had bad health since he was a child. Son of anarchist militant Miguel Almareyda, he also never really recovered from his father’s mysterious death in jail when he was 12. Abandoned by his mother, he passed from boarding school to boarding school. Aged 23, through meetings with people involved in the movies, he started working in the cinema, then bought a camera and shot his first film, a short documentary, À propos de Nice (1930) then, two years later, Taris, roi de l’eau (1931) (aka Taris champion de natation). These two very personal works frighten the producers, and it lasted two years before someone showed some...