Sébastien Roffat

About Sébastien Roffat

Sébastien Roffat is an historian specializing in animation cinema. He holds a PhD in film studies from the Sorbonne and is the recipient of the Aguirre-Basualdo Letters and Humanities Prize 2013 for his thesis dedicated to “The Emergence of a French School of Animated Film during the Occupation,” an award given by the Chancellery of the Universities of Paris. He is a teacher and lecturer (at the Center for the History of Resistance and Deportation, at the French Cinematheque, at the Memorial of the Shoah, at the Memorial of Caen…), and he is the author of eight works addressing both the history and aesthetics of animation cinema as well as political, economic, and sociological aspects: “Animation and Propaganda: Animated Films during World War II” (2005), “Disney and France: The Twenty Years of Euro Disneyland” (2007), “Animated Propaganda: Political Animation between 1933 and 1945” (2010), “The Truth about the Invention of Animated Projection. Émile Reynaud, His Life and Works” (critical reissue of a book by Maurice Noverre from 1926, 2013), “History of French Animated Film between 1936 and 1940: A State Cultural Policy?” (2013), “Political and Economic History of French Animated Film during the Occupation” (2013), “Aesthetics of French Animated Film during the Occupation” (forthcoming, 2014), and “History of French Animated Film between 1945 and 1953: The Lost Illusions” (forthcoming, 2014). He specializes in theme parks and more broadly in the Disney universe (lectures at EHESS, at the School of Art and Design of Amiens…).

Administrator and General Secretary of the French Association of Animation Cinema (Afca) from 2008 to 2013. Director of the “Animation Cinemas” collection at L’Harmattan publishing since 2010.

Member of the Jury DMA Animation Cinema, Institut Sainte-Geneviève, Paris. Co-organizer in October 2013 of the conference at the National Institute of Art History (INHA) dedicated to “Archives and Actors of Animation Cinemas in France” in partnership with IRCAV – Paris 3.

Course instructor at Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle: “Cinema and History”; “History of Animation Cinema from Origins to Present”; “Amateur Film”; “Erotic and Pornographic Cinema in France”.

Numerous radio interviews (France Culture, RFI, Le Mouv…) and television appearances (Arte, France 5, France 2…). To date, 38 conferences, 20 articles, and 8 books written.

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