Bertrand Blier, brilliant provocative filmmaker, died at the age of 85

French director Bertrand Blier, whose film “Prepare your handkerchiefs” won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1979, has died at the age of 85, his entourage announced to AFP on Tuesday.

Born on March 14, 1939 in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine), Bertrand Blier directed classics of French cinema such as “Les Valseuses” (1974), “Buffetfroid” (1979) and “Tenue de soiree” ( 1986) and directed several times by Gérard Depardieu.

Films that marked French cinema

The films of this fan of dark and crude humor, shot in particular with Gérard Depardieu, left their mark on French cinema in the 1970s and 1980s.

“Bertrand Blier was an immense and non-conformist filmmaker, a mad lover of the freedom to create,” praised Rachida Dati, the French Minister of Culture, on X.