Marc du Pontavice

Born on January 10, 1963, in the 15th arrondissement of Paris,^[1] he is the son of academic professor Emmanuel du Pontavice and doctor Anne de Pardieu. Marc comes from the Breton nobility, the du Pontavice family.^[3] Marc's parents never worked in French cinema and rarely took him to theaters; his grandmother was the one who took him to the legendary theater in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, La Pagode.^[4] When he turned seven, his parents agreed to show him a film they liked, Charlie Chaplin's City Lights. Every Sunday, he watched the program he never missed, Histoires sans paroles on ORTF. In his adolescence, he studied at a Jesuit college near Bonn in Germany, chosen by his parents, where he spent the first two months in absolute silence, without conversation and surrounded by strangers. Calmed by the power of silence, he spent his days reading, mostly poetry and few novels.^[4]

As a child, du Pontavice suffered childhood trauma^[5] due to the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother, who violently beat him, locked him in the closet, and separated him from his siblings' games, since his parents' marriage was a failure because his mother was homosexual. The abuse ended when she left him and his father in 1986 to move to the USA. Du Pontavice would not meet his mother again upon her death 30 years later in 2016.^[4] He studied at Sciences Po and graduated from the Eco-Fi section in 1989, after having studied there for three years starting in 1986.^[1][4]

Du Pontavice began his career at the world's oldest film studio, Gaumont, in 1990, after the studio joined forces with CFC-Groupe Robur to create Gaumont-Robur Télévision, led by Christian Charret, whose goal was to produce high-quality television series for European television channels. Then legal and financial manager of CFC-Groupe Robur from 1989 to 1990, after managing the financial organization and the production of about one hundred hours of fiction at Robur, du Pontavice became secretary-general of the new division.^[4] In 1992, after selling its film catalog to UGC, Robur also sold its stake in Gaumont-Robur Télévision to Gaumont, which subsequently renamed it Gaumont Television.^[6]

In 1993, encouraged by the success of the Highlander series, du Pontavice proposed adapting the series into an animated cartoon, co-produced by Gaumont Television in 1994. Convinced by the series delivered in just ten months, Gaumont's general director, Patrice Ledoux, proposed in March 1995 that du Pontavice form his own department, Gaumont Multimédia, to produce cartoons, video games, and internet content.^[7] He moved to Luc Besson's former studios in Paris in September 1995, which years later became the headquarters of Xilam.^[4] Series such as Space Goofs, followed by Oggy and the Cockroaches,^[8] were a great success for the studio. Gaumont Multimédia also produced video games with adaptations of The Visitors in 1997 and The Fifth Element in 1998. He is also the first French producer to sell French cartoons to American television.^[9]

However, due to Gaumont's need for funds to develop its Multiplex cinema network, the reorientation of its main business, cinema,^[10] and an inability to develop diversification businesses at Gaumont,^[7] in addition to the death of his father Emmanuel on December 23 of that year,^[5] he left Gaumont on December 10 and was replaced by Stéphane Pathernay at the helm of Gaumont Multimédia on January 1, 1999, until the studio's closure that same year.^[11] On the same day as his replacement, du Pontavice announced the creation of an independent animation studio,^[12] which was introduced at MIPTV in May 1999.^[13] On August 5, 1999, he founded the animation studio Xilam,^[10] where the studio's name is an anagram of M-Alix, a declaration of love for his wife, Alix de Maistre,^[4] and in December of the same year, Gaumont sold the assets of the former Gaumont Multimédia to du Pontavice for 44 million francs and reintegrated it into Xilam.^[4] Also in 1999, he signed a contract with Dargaud and Lucky Comics to purchase the animation rights to Lucky Luke, producing The New Adventures of Lucky Luke for France 3 in 2001 with a budget of €18.4 million.^[4]

On April 8, 2009, du Pontavice was elected president of the French Animation Producers Union.^[14] He held the position until 2015, when he was succeeded by Philippe Alessandri.^[15]

On February 3, 2020, along with 19 shareholders, he bought the longest-running film magazine in France, Cahiers du Cinéma, which resulted in the magazine's editorial team resigning collectively after the purchase.^[16] In the same year, he was invited by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to become a member of the academy.^[17]

On March 10, 2022, he released his autobiographical book, Destin animé, published by Slatkine et Compagnie, which tells the story of his life as a producer and the history of the Xilam studio.^[18] Development of the book began in mid-September 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the book's publisher offered du Pontavice the opportunity to tell his story in an autobiographical book.^[19]

Du Pontavice has been married to director and writer Alix de Maistre since June 23, 1989, with whom he had dated five years since 1984. They have two children, Lou and Ivan.^[1] Du Pontavice and de Maistre married in the former French commune of Saint-Martin-du-Mesnil-Oury in Calvados.^[20] The couple's relationship is very loving, as they form a united and fused couple, where de Maistre's love protects du Pontavice, also due to her support, both emotional and intellectual, which is one of the conditions for his balance. Without her, his choices would not always be the same. The birth of their children, Lou in 1992 and Ivan in 1995, brought rebirth to Marc, who faced sexual abuse from his mother in childhood. He has a good relationship with his two children, and also forms a strong bond with his eldest daughter.^[4] Du Pontavice and de Maistre have been living in Vincennes since 1996.^[4][20][21] On du Pontavice's 50th birthday in 2013, de Maistre made a moving speech, uttered an essential phrase which said all the strength of her gaze upon him: "Marc, you are not afraid".^[4]

He is a fan of recent animation such as Studio Ghibli's The Tale of the Princess Kaguya^[8] and The Wind Rises, and Disney's Wander Over Yonder,^[22] and also admires Brad Bird and Bluey.^[23][24]

Du Pontavice is fluent in English and German, the latter due to his time at boarding school near Bonn during his adolescence.^[4]

He criticized France Télévisions' decision to close France 4 in an interview with the newspaper Le Figaro in 2018, calling it "a profound mistake."^[25] In a column sent to Agence France-Presse in 2020, about one hundred representatives, including du Pontavice and the director of I Lost My Body, Jérémy Clapin, who make up the new general assembly of the Academy of Arts and Techniques of Cinema that holds the César ceremony, ruled out a collective resignation and denounced the lack of transparency following the presence of director Roman Polanski among the members.^[26]

Du Pontavice was intrigued by Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, but also Walt Disney's 1967 The Jungle Book, the Mandrake the Magician and Rahan comics and the paintings of Alexander Iakovlev.^{[4][8][27][5]}

• Pontavice, Marc du. Destin animé. France: Slatkine et Compagnie, 2022; ISBN 9782889441914^[49]