President of the Jury Biography – Jean François Camilleri - Festival du Film Merveilleux et Imaginaire

Come and meet Jean François Camilleri, the President of the jury of the 13th Edition of Festival du Film Merveilleux et Imaginaire.

Jean-François Camilleri, President of Echo Studio, is a movie industry veteran who spent most of his career at The Walt Disney Company.

He started in 1990 at the Buena Vista International office in Los Angeles, as head of advertising for Latin America and Europe when Disney movies were distributed by Warner Bros. International. He then moved to Paris and created the European office for BVI in 1991. He then joined the newly formed GAUMONT BUENA BISTA INTERNATIONAL office in charge of distribution and marketing for the Disney films on the french territory in 1993. In 1997, he became general manager of the structure and headed the distribution of Gaumont and Disney films until 2004. During that time, he led the distribution of hits like The Lion King, Aladdin, the Sixth Sense, the Pixar movies, the Studio Ghibli films and boxoffice successes for French films like Les Visiteurs, Le Diner De Cons to name a few.

In 2004, he launched the self distribution BVI France office and started the distribution of French documentaries such as Academy Award winner The March of the Penguins.

In 2008, Camilleri created within the Walt Disney Studios, Disneynature, the first production entity to produce wildlife films for the big screen. From 2008 to 2019, he produced a dozen films: African Cats, Chimpanzee, Bears, Wings of Beauty, The Crimson Wings, Blue, Born in China, Monkey Kingdom, Elephant… and acquired Jacques Perrin’s Ocean and BBC’s Earth for the US market.
In additon to his role as founder and General Manager of Disneynature, Camilleri became President of The Walt Disney Company France, Benelux and French Speaking Africa in 2009, in charge of all businesses of Disney, Marvel, Lucas Films in therse territories (Theatrical, TV, consumer products, music, publishing).

Camilleri left Disney in 2019 and created Echo Studio, the first European studio dedicated to producing and distributing impact films and engage-tainment for movie theatres, TV, streamers. Since 2019, Echo Studio co-produced Gilles de Maistres’ Demain est a nous, Aïssa Maïga’s Above Water (Marcher sur l’Eau), One Way Ticket (TV), Watt the Fish (TV), Buoyancy (cinema), Life After Isis (cinema – Xavier de Lauzanne), Nadia (TV) and is working on Whale Nation (cinema – 2023) , Sur Les Chemins Noirs which reached 1 million admissions in France, Pourquoi on se bat for TV5. There are 6 more films in production for releases in 2024.

Camilleri is the founder and associate of Pathé-Beji-Camilleri Africa (PBCA) a newly formed movie distribution structure for North Africa and French Speaking Africa.

Camilleri wrote LE MARKETING DU CINEMA (éditions Dixit) in 2006 and has been promoted to Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.