Christopher Challis

Christopher Challis is a British cinematographer who has worked on more than 70 feature films since starting in the industry in the 1940s.

After working as camera operator on a number of films for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, he made his debut as director of photography on The End of the River in 1947 one of their projects as producers. After The End of the River, Challis was camera operator under Jack Cardiff on The Red Shoes. He did not object to the demotion as he wanted to work on the film. Following this he went back to being director of photography. He was cinematographer on most of Powell and Pressburger's later films, including The Small Back Room (1949), The Elusive Pimpernel (1950), The Tales of Hoffmann (1951), Oh... Rosalinda!! (1955), The Battle of the River Plate (1956) and Ill Met by Moonlight (1957).

His expertise in colour cinematography made him a popular choice for British films of the 1950s, and he made a number of successful comedies, including Genevieve (1953), The Captain's Table (1958) and Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965). He worked on a variety of projects, such as The Spanish Gardener (1956), the 1960 war classic, Sink the Bismarck!, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), and Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970).

He was nominated for several BAFTA Awards for Best British Cinematography, including a win in 1966 for Stanley Donen's film Arabesque.

Martin Scorcese said: "It is not possible even to begin to take the full measure of the greatness of British filmmaking without thinking of Chris Challis." and "Chris Challis brought a vibrancy to the celluloid palette that was entirely his own, and which helped make Britain a leader in that long, glorious period of classic world cinema."