 There he was befriended by Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinémathèque Française, “one of the most important figures in the history of film” who became his mentor and spiritual father.At the instigation of Langlois, he went out to the newly independent Algeria and helped found the Cinémathèque Nationale Algérienne first with Ahmed Hocine and later with Boudjema Karèche and helped organise the “Rencontres des Cinémas du Monde” at the first Panafrican Cultural Festival in 1969 (the second was forty years later in August 2009).In 1974 the CNRS (the French National Scientific Research Council) appointed him director of a newly formed audiovisual division “CNRSAV” (initially called Service d'étude de réalisation et de diffusion de documents audio-visuels or SERDDAV) and finally simplified to “CNRS Image/Média” which he headed until 2001 and for which he was awarded “La Medaille de Cristal” for his creativity and innovation.