Olivier Théveneau began his career as an associate professor of American popular literature at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). In France, he also taught History of French Cinema at the Institute for American Universities in Aix en Provence, and Art History at “L’Ecole des Arts Décoratifs” in Nice (Villa Arson).
He directed his first short film “Whocares” in 1976, in the USA, and then came back the following year directing “Thank Goodness I Am a Country Boy” in France. He adapted the novel “Grendel” by John Gardner, and Vladimir Nabokov’s “Ada” and wrote original screenplays such as “The Exception and The Rule” and “Pen Friends, the Correspondent”.
He co-founded several film production companies, Whocares Productions in Paris in 1980, producing essentially short films such as “Memoires d’une Pierre”, then Théveneau Productions in 1986, producing audiovisual and promo-institutional films before starting Les Films Premiers Inc. in 1994 that he directed until 2005. He is also co-founder of the South of France Film Commission-Var and served on the Board of Directors as General Secretary until 1999.
He then went back to Los Angeles to establish the American branch of Dust Restauration, a company specialized in digital film restauration which he directed until 2002. While in Hollywood, he worked on the restauration of such films as “Sunset Boulevard”, “Roman Holiday” and “The Ten Commandments”.
In 2003, he headed the Audiovisual department of the Marseille University Hospital System (AP-HM), where he created and directed “AP-HM Télévision, a cable healthcare TV station, available on Numéricable.
Since 1986, he has been a moderator for numerous conferences and seminars as well as for TV shows such as “Questions d’Ethique” and “Sciences & Medecine” on AP-HM Television.
Within the framework of his doctoral studies at the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis, his work includes “Contemporary Mythologies in Modern America by Jules Huret” and the essay “Bleu de Chanel, the Unlikely Myth” in the “Cynos” literary review, l’Harmattan 2012.
Throughout his professional career, dedicated to cinema and television, he was the recipient of the “Prix de la Création du Conseil Régional Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur” in 1998 and the Prize for International Achievement, awarded by the Association of Film Commissioners International in Los Angeles, in 2000.