Alain Coiffier, newest AFC Consulting Member

By Dominique Gentil, AFC

by Dominique Gentil AFC newsletter n°239

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During one of last autumn meetings, the AFC’s Board of Directors decided to offer Alain Coiffier membership in the AFC as a consulting member. Alain willingly accepted our offer and we are very happy to extend a warm welcome to him. Dominique Gentil, AFC, has written the customary introduction.

Does Alain Coiffier really require an introduction? Many of us have encountered Alain in our professional lives. His personal experiences have been so exceptionally rich and diverse. Whilst preparing this text, Alain confided, “I wanted to study at the IHDEC (Institut des hautes études cinématographiques in Paris), I wanted to be a cinematographer.” But his path was different…

As a production director in the 1970s, he worked with Claude Berri (Le Cinéma de papa), Jean-Luc Godard (Tout va bien), Francis Girod, Jacques Demy…, he lived through all of Jean-Pierre Rassam’s productions.
Then, he was sent to Spain by Pierre Grimblat, an advertisement producer, during an exceptionally wonderful period in Spain’s history. Everyone who experienced those years have eyes that gleam when they recall the exceptionally charming freedom they were granted in their work.

In 1991, Alain became the director of the Madrid Film Laboratories, which, at that time, was a subsidiary of France Télécom. During the same period, he was very involved in professional organisations: founder of the AITE (Spanish Cinema, Audio-Visual, and Media Federation), Vice President of the FEITIS (European Federation of Technical Industries and Sound).
He created the “Cinema in Construction” section of the San Sebastian Film Festival, which is a system of subsidies and assistance to enable projects to be finished.
In 2004, Alain came back to Paris, where he was nominated director of Panavision for France and Spain. He organized the transfer of Alga’s headquarters to La Plaine Saint-Denis.

In 2011, free from his professional obligations, Alain met with the AFC in order to pitch the idea of “Cameflex”, a festival dedicated to image and those who create it. This adventure took shape in partnership with the Amiens Film Festival and we just ended the second annual event last November. I have been immensely happy to work alongside Alain in organizing “Cameflex-Amiens” these past two years. I have gotten to know a man who has a tremendous knowledge of our profession and an exceptional network of friends that he has not hesitated to call upon in order to make this event possible.
Alain is part of that generation of men which is so precious for our French technical industry, for they know that the wealth of our cinema is also due to its passion, generosity, and friendships.
His love of image and the cinema make Alain worthy of becoming a member of the AFC and help us to create our special event at Amiens. With him, we will be able to help this project grow in order to make “Cameflex-Amiens” an annual event that no director of photography will want to miss.
Welcome to Alain Coiffier as our newest Consulting Member, and thank you for your strong and visionary support for “Cameflex”.

(On the photo above, Denis Lenoir, AFC, ASC, with Gold Licorne in hands, and Alain Coiffier during Caméflex-Amiens 2013)