Pierre Arditi is a French actor, whose career in film, stage, and television has spanned six decades. He is known for his collaboration with director Alain Resnais in nine films, including Mélo (1986) and Smoking/No Smoking (1993), both of which earned him a César Award. He also won a Molière Award in 1987.

Alain Resnais was a French film director and screenwriter whose career extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct short films including Night and Fog (1956), an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps. He proceeded to make feature films. His films frequently explore the relationship between consciousness, memory, and the imagination, and he was noted for devising innovative formal structures for his narratives. Throughout his career, he won many awards from international film festivals and academies, including one Academy Award, two César Awards for best director, three Louis Delluc Prize and one Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.