François Armanet was born in 1951 in Fontenay-sous-Bois, France. He is a writer, journalist and film director. He has been a keen contributor to the daily newspaper Libération since 1981, and he served as the chief editor of the weekly French news magazine L’Obs (formerly known as Le Nouvel Observateur.) He is also the co-author of the first encyclopedia of kung-fu movies, Ciné Kung Fu, and organizer of the first two retrospectives that La Cinémathèque Française devoted to Hong Kong cinema (1990, 1997). His film La Bande Du Drugstore (2002), which he wrote and directed, screened in the Panorama section of the 52nd Berlinale. Most recently, his documentary Oh Les Filles (2019) was presented at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival.
