Alain Resnais, the French avant-garde director of Holocaust documentary Night and Fog, died at the age of 91 on Saturday (March 1).

Born in 1922 in Vannes, France, Resnais made a number of arthouse documentary shorts such as Visite à Oscar Dominguez (1947) and Malfray (1948) early in his career before his breakthrough 32-minute documentary Night and Fog (1955). The film explores the history of the Nazi death camps in Germany, and is touted by some as one of the most seminal films on the Holocaust alongside Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah.

Resnais also achieved great success with narrative features such as the Oscar-nominated films Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) and Last Year at Marienbad (1961). Most recently, he directed his 50th film, You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet, and last month premiered his latest offering, Life of Riley, at the Berlin Film Festival.

The director, who passed away in Paris, is survived by his second wife Sabine Azéma.