The animator and filmmaker Pierre Veilleux was born in Montreal in 1948. He studied classics at Collège André-Grasset, where he produced a few amateur films before studying studio arts and photography. In 1971, he took an internship at the National Film Board of Canada and experimented with various techniques. The following year, he produced Dans la vie..., a short which won him the prize for Best Animation at the Venice film festival. Une âme à voile (1982) won the Special Jury Prize at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and Champignons (1984) won an award in Zagreb. From 1982 to 1984 he taught animation workshops in Moncton and Edmunston, New Brunswick. In 1986 and 87 he contributed to the training of a group of animated filmmakers in Brazil. He later produced L'heure rêvée (1990) and Le phare (1997) which combined traditional drawing to modern animation techniques.