François Reichenbach

François Arnold Reichenbach (3 July 1921 – 2 February 1993) was a French film director, cinematographer producer and screenwriter. He directed 40 films between 1954 aEarly life

François Reichenbach was born in 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine. His father Bernard Reichenbach was a successful businessman and his mother Germaine Angèle Sarah Monteux had a passion for music, which she passed on to young François.

His maternal grandfather Gaston Monteux was a wealthy industrialist: he was one of the first to buy paintings by Chagall, Braque, Picasso, Soutine, Utrillo and Modigliani. In his memoirs François Reichenbach says: "At the age of five I was terrified by all the faces in the paintings. And I became a forger. I added mustaches and hairs to the nudes of Modigliani. This hoax takes on another dimension when you know that I made a film with Orson Welles about the forger Elmyr de Hory in 1973.