Michel Brault (born in 1928 in Montreal) was a Quebec cinematographer, cameraman, film director, screenwriter and film producer. His name appears in the credits of more than two hundred productions. Brault was a leading figure of Direct Cinema, characteristic of the French branch of the National Film Board of Canada in the 1960s. In 1956, Michel Brault joined the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada and two years later he made together with Gilles Groulx Les Raquetteurs, a film that had a decisive influence on NFB's french section in question of engaging in Direct Cinema movement.
As a cinematographer Brault was a pioneer of the hand-held camera aesthetic and collaborated with number of film directors from both North America and Europe, for example: Jean Rouch, Mario Ruspoli, Claude Jutra, Philippe de Broca, Dick Pearce or Czech director Vojtěch Jasný, with whom he worked on children's fantasy The Great Land of Small (1986).
For the whole of his works, Michel Brault received the Victor-Morin Award (Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal) in 1975, the Molson Award ( Canada Arts Council) in 1980, and the Governor-general's Award in 1996.