Somehow we’ve hit November, which means two things. First, it’s time to begin working myself into a pre-festive season panic and, more importantly, another cinema icon features in this month’s Rialto Channel Directors’ Showcase.

Following Henri-George Clouzot last month comes another French filmmaker, Francois Roland Truffaut (1932-1984). One of the founders of the French New Wave, Truffaut was a screenwriter, director, producer and actor.

A film critic turned filmmaker, his career lasted over 25 years and produced a broad range of work covering many different areas of interest; but in most cases exhibited both autobiographical material and a great sense of humanity.

The series kicks off with Truffaut’s 1959 debut feature film The 400 Blows (Sunday November 6, 8.30pm), which Roger Ebert describes in his book The Great Movies as “one of the most intensely touching stories made about a young adolescent”.

It’s the story of a rebellious young Parisian boy, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Leaud), who is neglected by his parents, skips school, sneaks into movies, and runs away from home. A poignant semi-autobiographic work, The 400 Blows also marks the beginning of a long collaboration between actor and director.

Truffaut and Leaud would return to this character four further times; in the short film Antoine and Collette (1962), the feature length Stolen Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (1970) and Love on the Run (1979). The 400 Blows earned Truffaut the Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1959, an Oscar nomination in 1960 for Best Screenplay, and established him as serious filmmaker.

It is an example of how Truffaut’s own life influenced his work. His childhood was miserable and, to escape from his mother who resented him and his step father, Truffaut found solace in Parisian movie houses from the age of seven. In his teens he founded a film club which brought him to the attention of influential cinema critic Andre Bazin who hired him to work as a critic/essayist for Cahiers du Cinema.

Our series also features Shoot the Piano Player (Sunday November 13, 8.30pm), the much loved and internationally successful Jules and Jim (Sunday November 20, 8.30pm) and The Last Metro (Sunday November 27, 8.30pm) staring Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu.

Francois Truffaut died at the young age of 52 from a brain tumour, and according to Ebert he “is likely the most beloved of modern directors - the one whose films resonate with the deepest, richest love of moviemaking”. Truffaut believed the most cinematically successful films were ones that contain a personal cinematic vision, so don’t miss this auteur’s unique and influential vision throughout November.

“I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema. I am not interested in anything in between.” - Francois Truffaut