Jacques Brunius

French actor, director, writer, poet, anarchist and Surrealist. His film work and writings are credited under various pseudonyms: Borel, Jacques Borel, Brunius, JB Brunius, Jacques B. Brunius, Jacques-Bernard Brunius, John La Montagne, Olaf Apollonius, Jacques Berne. He appeared in more than 30 films, including many of the early, more political, movies by his friend Jean Renoir e.g. 'Une Partie de Campagne' and 'Le Crime de Monsieur Lange' (both 1936), and 'L'affaire est Dans le Sac' (1932) by Jacques and Pierre Prévert.

He also directed 13 films including 'Autour d'une Évasion' (Around an Escape; 1934), based on a screenplay by Jean Vigo about the anarchist Dieudonné and his escape from prison in Guyana, and 'Violin d'Ingres' (1939), about l'art brut and 'Le Palais Idéal' of postman turned sculptor, Ferdinand Cheval, and the Surrealists.

Friend of André Breton and member of both the French and the English Surrealist groups, becoming a well-known defender of the movement on the radio in both countries, in addition to having been a radio announce of the famous coded messages to the French Résistance during WWII.