Jean Benoit-Lévy on AllMovie

French filmmaker and producer Jean Benoit-Lévy began his film career as an assistant director in 1910 but did not become a full-fledged director until a decade later when he began making and producing informational and educational films. During this time he made over 400 of them and eventually earned the Legion of Honor for his educational films. Later he became active in the League of Nations film affairs and consulted on feature films for the French government. He also made films about ballet and a few feature-length documentaries, but Benoit-Lévy is best remembered for the feature films he made during the '30s and '40s. While still in France, he was also a professor at the Ecole Nationale de Cinématographie. When WW II erupted, the director fled to the U.S. where from 1941 to 1946 he was an instructor at the New School for Social Research. He became the Director of Films and Visual Information for the United Nations. The following year he was appointed executive director of the United Nations Film Board. In 1949, Benoit-Lévy returned to filmmaking, working on the March of Time and on TV films. He created UNESCO's International Board of Cinema and Television in 1958 and after that went on to write a number of books and essays about films. He is the nephew of film pioneer Eugene Benoit-Lévy.