Christian Marti

One of France's busiest and most popular production designers, Christian Marti's behind-the-scenes work can be witnessed in a host of films and the occasional TV movie from the mid-1980s onwards. He got his start as an assistant director in 1986 on a pair of internationally released historical dramas set in the French countryside, "Jean de Florette" and its sequel, "Manon of the Spring." Marti's first credit as a designer came on the 1989 movie "Niu-Peng," a coming-of-age drama about a teenager imprisoned for listening to rock music during China's Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. That work propelled the designer's career into the following decades, and he was a constant presence on movie sets, often those of the big-budget historical variety. Among the more significant films receiving the Marti touch over the years were "Germinal," a 1993 adaptation of Émile Zola's novel about a miners strike in 19th century France, and 2007's "Jacquou le Croquant," yet another lavish period piece. For his work on the latter offering, Marti received a nomination for a Cesar (France's top film award). He also received a Cesar nomination for "Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque)" (2010), a biopic of enduringly popular French singer Serge Gainsbourg, adapted from his own graphic novel by cartoonist-turned-director Joann Sfar.