Tournier studied architecture at the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay, but decided that his true vocation was filmmaking. There he dedicated himself to archaeology, which he studied at the National University of San Marcos in Lima.
His work has been well-received both at home and at film festivals in Latin America, Europe and the United States. He joined C3M (Spanish: Cinemateca del Tercer Mundo) in 1969. He then lived as an exile in Peru from the military dictatorship in Uruguay until 1985.
He also made several short films.
During this period, he developed many of the animation techniques that he later applied with considerable success throughout his career, including the use of materials and technologies that he found locally. Tournier founded Imagenes Studio with producer Mario Jacob in 1986, where he served as head of animation.
Among other films, he directed The Hiding Places of the Sun (1990), which showed the aftermath of eleven years of dictatorship in Uruguay through the eyes of children. In addition, he made documentaries and coordinated an animation workshop that resulted in the environmental miniseries Mother Earth.
In 1994 he left Imagenes to form a new company, Tournier Animation.
In 2012, following a succession of short films and television miniseries, he directed the first full-length animated picture to be made in Uruguay entitled Selkirk, the Real Robinson Crusoe, with distribution by The Walt Disney Company. The production used puppet animation to present the life of 18th-century Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk. lieutenant was acclaimed by Montevideo"s El País newspaper as "a visual delight that is rarely found in a movie that is not British or American."
Tournier"s work has been shown at film festivals in Latin America, Spain, France, Germany and the United States.
His internationally awarded animated films include The Condor and the Fox (1980), The Disobedient Carnation (1981), Our Small Paradise (1983), Optical Illusions (1983), The Boss and the Carpenter (2000), Caribbean Christmas (2001) and In Spite of Everything (2003).
