René Vernadet

René Vernadet, born in 1927 in Paris, is a French director and camera operator.

René will never know his father, a dentist, who died in 1930. His mother, Marguerite, is a film makeup artist and little René, an only son, follows her from set to set. This artistic environment is their universe, they rub shoulders with Christian Jacques, Bourvil, Sacha Guitry, Cocteau… He could have become an actor but, at the time, it was above all the technique that motivated him. He therefore embarked on advanced studies in a film laboratory. Friend of Charles Aznavour and especially of Gilbert Bécaud, his “brother” for whom he would later write the lyrics of one or two songs, as well as for Yves Montand.

The encounter between his camera and the practice of climbing in Fontainebleau with the big names of the time such as Lucien Bérardini, Robert Paragot or Edmond Denis would trigger the trigger for his career: he followed them to Chamonix, met the photographer and filmmaker Georges Tairraz, with whom he shot, in 1947, the images of the International Ski Week. And off he went... A series of short films such as "Escale au Saussois", "La République Nous Appelle", "Glaces Eternelles", "Les Belles Vacances", bear his signature always marked by didacticism and humor.