“We’ll rest when we’re dead” — that was one of your favourite sayings. Are you resting well now?

Pierre William, I never shot with you, but we worked together at the CST. I believe you were pleased with the work of the image department. Sometimes we disagreed. And then, time would prove one of us right. Over the years, we built a special relationship founded on friendship and mutual respect — I must confess I was happy and proud of it. You were, for me, a reassuring yet demanding father figure.

You were the one who asked me to be a juror at the Cannes Film Festival for the CST’s Artiste Technicien award. I had never set foot on the Croisette, even though I’d been in the industry for several years already. That exciting and passionate experience — I owe it to you.

Pierre William, some called you Willy, others Glenn, others still Le Grand — I believe you collected quite a number of nicknames, most of them affectionate. Because that’s the thing: you were one of those people who inspire respect and affection, which is not given to everyone. You earned that respect and affection through your brilliant intelligence, your talent as a man of images, your humanity. You would never have left a friend stranded — you would always have done everything in your power to help. Conversely, it was not good to be in the camp of your enemies (you inevitably had some — light always attracts both good and bad).

I will no longer see the sparkle in your blue eye when you’re pleased. You were naturally elegant — I even suspect a certain discreet but very real vanity. I believe your mother, who worked in the great fashion houses, had much to do with it. I’ll miss our lunches, our phone calls where I could sense your smile without seeing it.

You championed so many causes, some popular, some less so: digital cinema, the cinema of tomorrow, training, passing on knowledge, new technologies. You were a pioneer. “Cinema must not be a museum,” you would say.

Pierre William, your flame will continue to burn through all those you’ve inspired.

Farewell, my friend.

Françoise Noyon