André Bazin (born April 18, 1918, Angers, France–died November 11, 1958, Nogent-sur-Marne, France) was an influential French film critic who was active during the development of postwar film theory. Directing cine-clubs during the Nazi Occupation, he co-founded the monthly film magazine Cahiers du cinéma in 1951 with Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca, which he edited until his early death of leukaemia. Publishing 2,600 articles during his lifetime, he was preparing the four-volume collection of his writing, Qu-est-ce que le cinéma? [What Is Cinema?], at the time of his death. A champion of Italian Neorealism, Robert Flaherty, Jean Renoir, and Orson Welles, he helped to launch filmmakers of the French New Wave [Nouvelle vague] who developed their formal convictions as writers at Cahiers, including Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, and his foster-son François Truffaut.