Tragic disappearance of film producer Nicolas Altmayer

With his brother Eric, we owe them the saga 0SS 117, Chocolat, Monsieur Aznavour, Alpha but also numerous films by François Ozon, Fabien Ontoniente, Franck Gastambide…. He died at the age of 66 in a car accident

The news shocked the world of French cinema this morning. Nicolas Altmayer, the co-creator (with his brother Eric) of the production company Mandarin, was killed yesterday in a car accident in Deux-Sèvres which was also fatal to his wife Mathilde Favier, who headed public relations at Dior Couture.

A graduate of Paris-Dauphine University, Nicolas Altmayer entered the cinema industry as financial director of Flach Film, the production company of Jean-François Lepetit, to whom we owe in particular Three men and a bassinet. But it was in 1996, exactly 30 years ago this year, that he decided to join forces with his older brother Eric to create the production company Mandarin & Compagnie. It was with Fabien Onteniente that they experienced their first successes thanks to Jet set And Three zeros. And they will immediately establish themselves definitively in the comedy register with Brice de Nice whose success definitively launched – two years later The Conveyor – the big screen career of Jean Dujardin but also and above all the saga OSS 117 by Michel Hazanavicius

But Nicolas Altmayer and Eric quickly refused to confine themselves to a single genre. And what is striking when looking at the list of 80 and a few films they co-produced is the eclecticism of the whole. Between romantic works (The first day of the rest of your life which revealed Rémi Bezançon), ambitious biopics (The Conquest by Xavier Durringer around Nicolas Sarkozy, Saint Laurent by Bertrand Bonello, Chocolate by Roschdy Zem, Mr Aznavour by Grand Corps Malade and Mehdi Idir, whose first feature they happily accompanied, Patients), historical films (The Innocents by Anne Fontaine, The Emperor of Paris by Jean-François Richet) or fantastic (Alpha by Julia Ducournau, Dalloway by Yann Gozlan) without counting a UFO like The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq, their long-term collaboration with François Ozon, Potiche has My Crime passing through Frantz And Thanks to God and this without ever leaving aside the comedy with in particular the boxes of Kaïra and of Pattaya by Frank Gastambide, whose first steps as a filmmaker they once again accompanied.

Beyond his professional qualities (he received with his brother from the Académie des César the 2027 Tuscan Prize rewarding the best producers of the year) and the force of suggestion that he was throughout his career, Nicolas Altmayer was also and above all a personality appreciated by his peers and all those who, like us, were lucky enough to one day cross his path. French cinema is in mourning on August 18.