Jean Vigo

Jean Vigo (April 26, 1905 – October 5, 1934) was a short-lived French film director, who helped establish poetic realism in film in the 1930s and went on to be a posthumous influence on the French New Wave of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Biography
Vigo was born to Emily Clero and the prominent militant anarchist Eugene Bonaventure de Vigo (who adopted the name Miguel Almereyda - an anagram of "y'a la merde", which translates as "there is shit"). Much of his early life was spent on the run with his parents. His father was strangled in his cell in Fresnes Prison on the night of 13 August 1917 — allegedly the doing of the authorities. The young Vigo was subsequently sent to boarding school under an assumed name, Jean Sales, to conceal his identity.

Vigo was married and had a daughter in 1931. He died of complications from tuberculosis, which he had contracted eight years earlier.

Career
Vigo is noted for two films which affected the future development of both French and world cinema: Zéro de conduite (1933) and L'Atalante (1934).

He also made two other films: À propos de Nice (1929), a subversive silent film examining social inequity in 1920s Nice; and Taris, roi de l'eau (1931), a motion study of swimmer Jean Taris.

His films — especially Zéro de conduite — have been heavily censored by the French government. They outlived their critics, though, and L'Atalante was chosen as the 10th-greatest film of all time in Sight & Sound's 1962 poll, and as the 6th-best in its 1992 poll.

The Prix Jean Vigo is an annual award.