Theatre Designer
René Allio is a French director, screenwriter, producer, decorator and scenographer (Marseille, 1924 – Paris, 1995).
René Allio began his career as a decorator at the theater after completing his literary studies. He studied art in Paris, then started his career as a decorator at the theater. Since 1957 he worked together with Roger Planchon at Théâtre de la Cité in Villeurbanne and continued working for main European venues, such as Comédie-Française, the Opéra de Paris, the Théâtre national populaire and the Tréteaux de France, La Scala, the Royal Shakespeare Company in London, La Commune d'Aubervilliers, the Maison de la Culture in Lyon, the Hammamet Theater in Tunisia and the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. He also directed the scenography of the Grande galerie de l'Evolution in Paris.
Rene Allio cooperated with Roland Petit, and created scenography for six of his ballets: Notre Dame de Paris (1966), L'Arlésienne, Proust ou les intermittences du coeur (1974), Les Hauts de Hurlevent (1982), The Four Seasons, Hollywood Paradise (1984).
In 1958 he submitted for cinema distribution a cartoon based on a theatrical production Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. He made his first film in 1962, the short La Meule, before obtaining a great success in 1965 with his first feature film, La Vieille Dame indigne (1967), which tells about maestro’s Marseille roots. This work received several awards, which allowed Rene to start new projects: L’une et l’autre (1967), Les Camisards (1972), Rude Day for the Queen (1973), Return to Marseille (1980). After 1976 he worked in Marseille region and created his own cinematic workshop. Return to Marseille became a compelling manifest of this “downshifting”. In 1991 he shot his last creation Transit and took part in a joint project Contre l'oubli (in cooperation with Jean-Luc Godard, Patrice Chéreau and Bertrand Tavernier among others).