Henri Langlois (13 November 1914, İzmir, Ottoman Empire – 13 January 1977) was a French film archivist and cinephile. A pioneer of film preservation, Langlois was an influential figure in the history of cinema. His film screenings in Paris in the 1950s are often credited with providing the ideas that led to the development of the auteur theory.

Langlois was co-founder of the Cinémathèque Française with Georges Franju and Jean Mitry and also co-founder of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) in 1938. Through close collaboration with the Cinémathèque's longtime Chief Archivist, Lotte Eisner, he worked to preserve films and film history in the post-war era. An eccentric who was often at the center of controversy for his methods, he also served as a key influence on the generation of young cinephiles and critics who would become the French New Wave.

In 1974, Langlois received an honorary Academy Award for "his devotion to the art of film, his massive contributions in preserving its past and his unswerving faith in its future."

François Roland Truffaut (6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was an influential film critic and filmmaker, one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five films.

Truffaut was born in Paris on 6 February 1932. His mother was Janine de Montferrand. His mother's future husband, Roland Truffaut, accepted him as an adopted son and gave him his surname. He was passed around to live with various nannies and his grandmother for a number of years. It was his grandmother who instilled in him her love of books and music. He lived with his grandmother until her death when Truffaut was ten years old. It was only after his grandmother's death that he lived with his parents for the first time. The identity of Truffaut's biological father was unknown, though a private detective agency in 1968 revealed that their enquiry into the matter led to a Roland Levy, a Jewish dentist from Bayonne. Truffaut's mother's family disputed the findings but Truffaut himself believed and embraced them.

Mathieu Demy is a French actor, director and producer, born October 15, 1972 in Paris. He is the son of Agnès Varda and Jacques Demy.

Mathieu Demy started as a child actor in Agnès Varda’s films : One sings, the other doesn’t, Documenteur, Murs, murs, then Kung-fu Master.

Demy’s work as an actor ranges from romantic comedy to drama. His breakthrough came in1998, when he was cast as Olivier, a young man with AIDS, in the musical Jeanne and the perfect guy, directed by Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau.

In 1999, he started company Les Films de l’Autre to produce his own short films. He produced and directed in 2000 his first film Le Plafond (35’), adapted from a short story by Tonino Benacquista. The film received the audience award at the Angers film festival Festival Premiers Plans and the Uppsala International short film Festival, and additional awards in Pantin, Rennes, Dignes, Mamers.

In 2001, Mathieu Demy worked for director Benoît Cohen for the first time, in the film Les Acteurs anonymes. They reunited for Our precious children, in which he plays Martin, a thirty-year-old man who meets his great love again as he’s about to become a father.

Marina Vlady (born Marina de Poliakoff-Baidaroff in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine on 10 May 1938) is a French actress.

She won the Best Actress Award at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival for The Conjugal Bed. From 1955 to 1959 she was married to actor/director Robert Hossein. From 1963 to 1966 she was married to Jean-Claude Brouillet, a French "entrepreneur", owner of two airlines and member of French Resistance during the WW II. From 1969 until his death in 1980 she was married to Russian poet and songwriter Vladimir Vysotsky.

Marina Vlady is the sister of actresses Odile Versois, Hélène Vallier and Olga Baïdar-Poliakoff; her father was a noted artist of Russian heritage. Like her siblings, she began acting as a child and for a while pursued a ballet career. Projecting a more sensual, alluring image than her sisters, she gained international renown. She was also starred by Jean-Luc Godard in the female lead in 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle (1967). One of her few English roles was Kate Percy in Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight. Her TV credits include the 1983 mini series La Chambre des Dames.

Olivier Marchal (b. November 14, 1958 in Talence, France) is a French actor, director, screenwriter, and a former policeman. In 2005, he was nominated for three César Awards (best director, best film, and best writing), for his film 36 Quai des Orfèvres.