Latcho Drom director Tony Gatlif dies aged 77 — SkimNews
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- Tony Gatlif died Wednesday at 77 from a "health issue" while working on a "historical film project" in Arles, Provence, France, according to a family statement to AFP shared by his wife, children and grandchildren.
- Latcho Drom (1993), Gatlif's breakthrough film tracing Roma music from India to Spain, won the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes and lent its title — meaning "safe journey" — as the family's farewell phrase.
- Gadjo Dilo (1997), starring Romain Duris as a Frenchman searching for a Roma singer in Romania, won a Silver Leopard at the Locarno film festival and a César for best original music.
- Born Michel Dahmani in 1948 in Algeria of part Berber and part Roma heritage, Gatlif fled to France in 1960 during the Algerian war of independence and adopted his later name from a park in Algiers after being stopped by police as a 12-year-old.
- Exils (2004), another Gatlif-Duris collaboration exploring his Algerian roots, won the best director award at Cannes.
- French Culture Minister Catherine Pégard said Gatlif had "a fondness for the road less travelled, for blurring borders, and for lives that too often go unnoticed," filming "music, movement, exile, and freedom."
Why it matters: Gatlif built a 20+ film career that put Roma and Berber stories on the world's most prestigious festival stages — winning at Cannes twice (Un Certain Regard 1993, best director 2004), at Locarno, and a César — making him arguably European cinema's most sustained cinematic voice for marginalized cultures. His death mid-project leaves an unfinished historical film and a distinctive directorial lineage without an obvious successor.
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