Antoine Bonfanti

Antoine Bonfanti
Bonfanti in 1994
Bonfanti in 1994
Background information
Born(1923-10-26)26 October 1923
Ajaccio, Corsica
Died4 March 2006(2006-03-04) (aged 82)
OccupationSound engineer

Antoine Bonfanti (23 October 1923 – 4 March 2006) was a French sound engineer and a professor at cinema schools and institutes in France and other countries. He taught at INSAS in Brussels and EICTV in Cuba.

Early life

He was born 26 October 1923 in Ajaccio, Corsica, and died 4 March 2006 in Montpellier, France.[1]

Career

Antoine Bonfanti, "Toujours dire, raconter, convaincre..."
Antoine Bonfanti, "Always say, tell, convince..."

He began learning his profession as a trainee boom-operator on the film La Belle et la Bête by Jean Cocteau. He is considered one of the pioneers of direct-sound in film-making on location: "the school of direct-sound is French—said sound-engineer Jean-Pierre Ruh—it began with Antoine Bonfanti".

He is known for his collaborations with directors as Bernardo Bertolucci, André Delvaux, Amos Gitaï, Jean Luc Godard, Joris Ivens, William Klein, Chris Marker, Gérard Oury, Alain Resnais, René Vautier, and Paul Vecchiali (see filmography below).[2]

Bonfanti's primary occupation is the authenticity of sound: above all he likes building the whole universe of sound of one film, through every stage from filming to sound-mixing. In this pattern, he had 120 films of which 80 feature films. His filmography includes about 420 titles of long and short Films of fiction or documentary; and within this number, some can be still missing because–as involved in cinema as in politics—Antoine did lots of "for free" that may have not been listed.[3]

Member of the Résistance and volunteer soldier in the years of 1943-1945, militant, communist by spirit, and vigilante, he was a part of SLON collective—which later became ISKRA - and of the Medvedkine-groups.

He shared his sound-artist's talent and he has trained several generations of sound-engineers in many countries (Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Morocco, Mozambique, Peru, Portugal, Tunisia, Venezuela), where cinema is a form of resistance.

The film Antoine Bonfanti—Traces sonores d'une écoute engagée, directed by Suzanne Durand, traces more than 50 years of Bonfanti's professional career, highlighting his collaborations with numerous filmmakers and his approach to sound practice beyond its technical aspects.

Bonfanti himself recounts this in an interview by Noël Simsolo on France-Culture, called "Mémoire du siècle, Antoine Bonfanti" on 20 August 1997, broadcast during "Les Nuits de France-Culture" at midnight of 25 January 2016.

Biography

Antoine Bonfanti, Albanie, 1988
Antoine Bonfanti, Albania, 1988

Antoine, nicknamed "Nono" by his Corsican family, "Toni" by his war comrades, "Bonbon" within the world of cinema, was born in Ajaccio in 1923. The family leaves again for Africa in 1926, having already spent some years in Conakry in "République de Guinée", (formerly "Guinée française"). His father is "receveur principal des postes" in Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina-Faso (formerly "Haute-Volta"). Antoine spends some of his youth there but, when his eldest brother must go to high-school, the family returns to Corsica, before his father be appointed "percepteur" (tax-collector) at Saint-Rambert d'Alban, and after at Touquet-Paris-Plage.

As a child, he discovers the paroquial-cine in Corsica. At Touquet, the family goes to the cinema pretty often. He remembers fondly the showing of the film "Les marins de Kronstadt" d'Efim Dzigan, organised by his father to mark the death of Roger Salengro in 1936, where spectators leave the theater singing "l'Internationale". He is 13 during the "Front populaire". At Boulogne-sur-Mer in the boarding-school at the "Collège Mariette" - and on his train journeys - he uses to pass near the steelworks, red flags hanging from the rooftops; and he remains very touched by the workers who were raising their fists to salute the train. The "pros and con" fight in the school-yard. There, Antoine "has been lucky enough to have Jean Marcenac as his teacher of Philosophy and French, who opened up the eyes and his library".

His political awareness began in June 1940, after the "drôle de guerre". He didn't understand Paul Reynaud's phrase who said after the debacle: "I don't believe in miracles, but if someone were to tell me that a single miracle could save France, I'd believe in that miracle". But two days later the Germans were occupying Touquet.

Later, boarding at College in Orléans (his "correspondent" is a Corsican chief of police), he was expelled in November 1941 for knocking out the chief-supervisor who deprives him of his meal; Antoine was a lightweight boxer and competitive swimmer.

He feels the pull of the resistance. He produces pamphlets on linoleum "in private", and tries on several times to reach England by small boats with friends. He is becoming dangerous for his father who is part of one resistance-movement; and when Antoine is called up, in May 1942, for the construction of the "Mur de l'Atlantique", his father orders him to escape to Corsica (it's his formerly correspondent who obtains a pass for him). He then forms part of the " Résistance armée urbaine" at the "Front National" (at this time: Front national pour la libération et l'indépendance de la France): "we were in a war of liberation against the Germans, and also in a war of revolution against the Petain-regime". In 1943, he commit himself as voluntary-soldier in the "Bataillon de choc". He becomes "chasseur" in the fourth company. After the Toulon-loading, his batallon goes up as far as Tyrol; Antoine loses numerous comrades on the way. To his great detriment, he is only demobilized in September 1945.

He has two children from a first marriage, Jean-Claude and Francis. Years later, he married Maryvon Le Brishoual whom he met in Brazil in 1968, during the filming of "Le grabuge" (O tumulto) by Edouard Luntz, produced by Fox. They have three children: Kalanna, Solène and Maël.

In 1946, he took correspondence lessons from the "Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers"; and thanks to his cousin, Mathieu Bonfanti, he was chosen as boomer-trainee on " La belle et la bête" by Jean Cocteau, at the "Studios de St Maurice" where, in the following time, he learns all the roles, all the trades of sound. In 1948, he started to work at " Radiodiffusion française" (which become RTF en 1949 and ORTF in 1964) where he learns " à faire ce qu'il ne faut pas faire" (what not to do). Ardent militant, he fights against the American politics which refuses to accept quotas; but with the "Accords Blum-Byrnes", Léon Blum sacrifices French cinema, in order "to put France back on the right track" with the Plan Marshall accepted, and announced in June 1947.

In 1962, he began teaching several times a year at l'INSAS in Brussels.

He took a keen interest by Cuba in 1963 during the filming of the documentary of Claude Otzenberger "Fidel si, Fidel no" ("Cuba 63"). He donated then to the ICAIC his favorite appliances (Nagra III and his fetish micro Beyerdynamic M 160). For him "Cuba is the discovery of a single application of a socialist concept, but the Cubans, remarkable people, don't deserve what they were to endure afterwards". He is rebelling constantly against l'embargo (called blocus in Cuba) that U.S.A. established in 1962, and still applied.

In 1989, he began teaching at EICTV each year until February 1999.

Antoine Bonfanti and directors, René Vautier, Yann Le Masson, Bruno Muel, and Jacqueline Meppiel, were very close, but he wasn't one to exclude anyone due to political differences, the only thing important to him was that he could "make his sound to become the sound of the film". When he has that freedom, the actors of his films are more likely to improvise and can't be dubbed in post-production (as Louis de Funès in the films of Gérard Oury).

He is invited to talks, seminars and conferences on sound, is a jury member or president at film festivals, but he is mostly solicited to institutes, centers and cinema schools in numerous countries; the Cinemathèque of Lisbonne devoted a week to him in 1985.

Filmography

Filmography of his different sound collaborations and at different novels according to the years; (the dates of the films - Long or Short, fiction or documentary - are those of filming or release).

Awards

In 1977 Bonfanti was nominated for the César Award for Best Sound for his work on the film Je t'aime moi non plus, directed by Serge Gainsbourg.[26]

Publication

  • Bonfanti, Antoine; Ley, Pierre (1993). "Le film". In Eyrolles (ed.). Le Livre des Techniques du Son, Tome 3 : L'exploitation (in French). Paris. pp. 327–389.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

References

  1. ↑ "Antoine Bonfanti - Actor, Sound, Sound Editor". ACMODASI USA. Retrieved 2026-08-26.
  2. ↑ "Films with sound by Antoine Bonfanti". letterboxd.com. Retrieved 2026-08-26.
  3. ↑ "Joaquim Pinto on António Reis & Margarida Cordeiro". The Theater of the Matters. Retrieved 2026-08-26.
  4. ↑ "Un général revient".
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 "Chris Marker".
  6. ↑ "Le joli mai - Version restaurée 2013".
  7. ↑ Sophie Dufau (16 September 2011). ""Octobre à Paris", le film interdit, projeté en avant-première au festival de Mediapart". Mediapart.
  8. ↑ "Fidel si Fidel no - Vidéo Ina.fr".
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Capifilms".
  10. ↑ "Grupo Medvedkine de Besançon - Classe de lutte (1969)". YouTube.
  11. ↑ "Lettre à mon ami Pol Cèbe". YouTube. 28 November 2014.
  12. ↑ Ina.fr, Institut National de l’Audiovisuel – (1970-01-01). "André Delvaux à propos de son film "Belle"". Ina.fr (in French). Retrieved 2016-11-09.
  13. ↑ "René Vautier : Avoir 20 ans dans les Aurès". Archived from the original on 2016-11-10. Retrieved 2017-01-21.
  14. ↑ "Démocratie syndicale (la)". Ciné-Archives.
  15. ↑ "La Société Du Spectacle (1973)". YouTube. 10 May 2012.
  16. ↑ "La Folle de Toujane". YouTube.
  17. ↑ "Septiembre chileno (1973)".
  18. ↑ "La nuit du phoque (1974)".
  19. ↑ "Luttes d'aujourd'hui". Ciné-Archives.
  20. ↑ "Africultures - Fiche film : Bicots-nègres vos voisins (Les)".
  21. ↑ "Guerre du peuple en Angola".
  22. ↑ "La Spirale". YouTube. 10 March 2014.
  23. ↑ "Africultures - Fiche film : West Indies ou les nègres marrons de la liberté".
  24. ↑ "Le blanc de Bilbalogo". 15 April 2017.
  25. ↑ RadioTV Cyrnea (2016-04-07). "San Bartuli, l'écho de la Castagniccia". YouTube. Retrieved 2016-10-23.
  26. ↑ "Je t'aime moi non plus (1976) - Cast & Crew on MUBI". mubi.com. Retrieved 2026-08-26.
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