André Van In studied from 1968 to 1974, at the IFC and at Paris VIII, cinema department. André Van In's films were selected several times for the Cinéma du réel, the international documentary film festival of the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou.

André Van In also participated in the creation of the Ateliers Varan, a training center for documentary filmmaking, where he has been a trainer since 1981 until his death. He collaborated with Séverin Blanchet and Marie-Claude Treilhou. He created several workshops abroad: Mexico City in 1982, Telamayu in Bolivia in 1983 and the Johannesburg Workshop in 1985, where he directed Chroniques sud africaines (1988) and My vote is my secret (1995). From 2004 to 2014, he directed the Varan workshop in Vietnam.