Worked as a journalist and TV writer before making two noted shorts in the early 70s, and his debut feature in 1973. Tacchella's films are generally sentimental, understated character studies which on occasion, as with the internationally-acclaimed "Cousin, Cousine" (1975), rise above their superficial treatments. A smooth technician, Tacchella's camera work is fluid and precise. "Traveling avant" (1987), roughly equivalent to the American film term "tracking shot", is a semi-autobiographical paean to his youth as a cinema fanatic and cine-club enthusiast in post-war Paris.