The Velvet Queen

Marie Amiguet is a French documentary filmmaker specializing in wildlife reporting. She discovered photography and large mammals at the age of nine when her parents decided to go to Cambodia. After obtaining a science degree, she began studying biology but quickly grew tired of theory. Eager for adventure, she set off to travel, exploring West Africa and the Caribbean and even crossing the Pacific Ocean by boat—experiences that deepened her connection to the animal world. At 25, she returned to France and enrolled at the Institut francophone de formation au cinéma animalier de Ménigoute (IFFCAM), where she earned a master’s degree. After her first films, she met director Jean-Michel Bertrand, who was working on a film project about wolves in the Hautes-Alpes. She joined him for four years, working as a cinematographer and as a camera operator for two feature films, while also directing two documentaries of her own. In 2017, wildlife photographer Vincent Munier invited her to join him in the Tibetan highlands to film snow leopards. She embarked on the journey with him and travel writer Sylvain Tesson. The Velvet Queen premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in the Cinema for the Climate section and won the César Award for Best Documentary in 2022.

Vincent Munier was born in Épinal, in the Vosges region of France, in 1976. His father Michel taught him camping skills and instilled in him a deep-seated need to “tiptoe into the forest.” When he was 12 years old, Vincent took his first photograph of a deer. In 1999, he published his first book, Le ballet des grues. Horticultural worker, mason and photojournalist, he took on odd jobs to finance the purchase of photographic equipment. Encouraged by several successes in the “Wildlife Photographer of the Year” competition organized by the BBC and the Natural History Museum in London, he decided in 2000 to devote himself exclusively to wildlife photography. Vincent is known for his unique photographic style, inspired by Japanese prints and minimalist art: mist, rain, snow, and blizzards envelop landscapes and animals, sometimes leaving only their silhouettes visible. His images are the result of increasingly distant quests and long periods of patience to remain unnoticed by the legitimate inhabitants of nature. A fan of solo travel, combining adventure, naturalist interest, and photography, he likes to plan his own expeditions, always taking care not to be intrusive. In 2013, he spent a month alone and without assistance on the frozen island of Ellesmere in the Canadian Arctic. A pack of nine white wolves came to meet him: these “ghosts of the tundra” feature in his book Arctic (2015). He photographed the snow leopard, another elusive predator, for the first time in spring 2016 on the Tibetan plateau, and in 2018 published two books on the subject, including Tibet, minéral animal with travel writer Sylvain Tesson. In 2021, the movie La panthère des neiges (The Velvet Queen), which he co-directed with Marie Amiguet, was released. Vincent now exhibits in art galleries in Europe and the United States and publishes his images in the international press. He is the author of a dozen books.

Bio: Maison 4:3
Photo: Simon Munier, Courtesy of Maison 4:3