Olivier Père

Olivier Père is a French film critic, programmer, festival director, and film executive whose career has been closely tied to European art cinema. Born in Marseille in 1971, he studied humanities at the Sorbonne before entering film programming. His early professional work was at the Cinémathèque française, where he joined in 1995 and became involved in programming retrospectives and thematic seasons. That background placed him in the tradition of French cinephilia, where criticism, archiving, programming, and production often overlap.

Père also built a public profile as a critic. From the late 1990s he wrote about film, television, and DVD for Les Inrockuptibles, and he collaborated with the Belfort Entrevues Film Festival on retrospectives. His reputation as a programmer led to one of his most visible posts: from 2004 to 2009 he headed Directors' Fortnight, the independent Cannes section organized by the Société des Réalisateurs de Films. In that role he helped shape a major showcase for auteur cinema outside the festival's official competition.

In 2009 Père became artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, serving until 2012. Locarno's identity as a festival for discovery, cinephile programming, and international auteur work suited his background in criticism and repertory programming. In 2012 he moved to Arte France Cinéma, becoming managing director of the film-production subsidiary of Arte France and director of acquisitions for Arte France. In that executive role he has been associated with a slate of internationally visible art-house productions and co-productions, with database credits including films such as Nymphomaniac: Vol. I, High Life, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Titane, Triangle of Sadness, Holy Spider, Corsage, La Chimera, All We Imagine as Light, and other European and international festival titles.