Marc Caro was born in
Nantes, the native town of
Jules Verne, who made a great impact on him, influenced his love for
science fiction and his artistic style. During the 1970s he worked as an editor and designer at
Métal hurlant, drew comics for ''
L'Écho des savanes and Fluide Glacial'' along with
Gilles Adrien who would also join Caro on his movie projects.
Caro-Jeunet In 1974 Caro met and befriended
Jean-Pierre Jeunet at the
Annecy International Animated Film Festival which led to a long-lasting collaboration. Together they directed two animated shorts, ''L'évasion
(The Escape, 1978) and Le manège
(The Carousel, 1980) which was awarded the César Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 6th César Awards in 1981. Same year they wrote and co-directed a short art film Le Bunker de la dernière rafale'' (The Bunker of the Last Gunshots) where the pair also worked as cinematographers, editors, set decorators, costume designers, even actors. Caro also produced shorts, ads and music clips on his own. In 1991 they directed their first feature film, a dark comedy
Delicatessen which launched their careers: the film won the Gold Hugo at the
Chicago International Film Festival and Tokyo Gold Prize at the
Tokyo International Film Festival in 1991, César Awards for Best Debut and Best Writing at the
17th César Awards (1992) and the Best Director award at the
Sitges Film Festival (1993). As Caro described their working process, "Jean-Pierre handles direction in the traditional sense of the word, that is, the direction of the actors, etc., while I do the artistic direction. Beyond that, in the day-to-day workings of the shoot of preproduction, it's obviously much more of a mixture. We write together, film together, edit together. According to each of our specialties, sometimes we'll be drawn to what we do best. There's a real complicity between us. The friends were then suggested to direct the fourth
Alien installment,
Alien Resurrection, and while Jeunet agreed, Caro refused to work on a film over which he lacked creative control, although he was persuaded to spend three weeks in
Hollywood working on costume and set design. In 2009 he directed a 53-minute documentary
Astroboy à Roboland based on the
Astro Boy franchise. He returned to directing only in 2018 with a 5-minute short
Loop. In 2011 he became one of the initiators of the joined French-
Japanese 3D animated movie
Windwalkers: Chronicle of the 34th Horde working as an art director and visual effects supervisor, with Kounen attached as a director. The movie was based on the top-selling French novel
La Horde du Contrevent by
Alain Damasio and received a budget of €18 million ($23.4 million), but after American distributors requested to "
marvelise" the script which they found "indigestible and too complicated", Caro and Kounen left the project which was eventually frozen in 2015. ==Filmography==