Jean-Gabriel Leynaud began his career in filmmaking at a very young age, pursuing a career as a camera assistant in fiction and as a cinematographer in documentaries. At 19, he made his first film, Place de la République, in which he followed two young homeless drug addicts for a year. Since then, he has directed around fifteen documentaries. He has also directed more than sixty documentaries for cinema, television, as well as fiction and commercials. His films have been selected for major festivals (Venice, Sundance, Tribeca, FIPA, etc.) and screened at the Cinémathèque Française and the ASC. He was nominated in 2025 for best documentary photography at the AFC awards.