As a young man Jean-Michel Arnold met Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinematheque Francaise, who became his friend and mentor in his life long passion for cinema and culture. He set up the Cinematheque Nationale Algerienne in the 1960s and organized the World Cinema festival during the Panafrican Festival of Culture in Algiers in 1969. In 1974 he returned to France and created a department dedicated to image and science at the CNRS at UNESCO. He also appears from time to time in movies made by his friends.
