Latcho Drom director Tony Gatlif dies aged 77 — SkimNews
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- Tony Gatlif died aged 77 on Wednesday from a "health issue" while working on a historical film project in Arles, Provence, his family said in a statement to AFP.
- His wife, children, and grandchildren wished him "Latcho Drom," a Roma phrase meaning "safe journey" — the same title as his 1993 breakthrough film, which traced Roma music from India to Spain and won the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes.
- 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 left for France in 1960 during the Algerian war of independence and adopted the name Gatlif — from a park in Algiers — after being stopped by police as a 12-year-old.
- His 2004 film Exils, also starring Duris, explored his Algerian heritage and won the best director award at Cannes.
- France's minister of culture Catherine Pégard said Gatlif "had a fondness for the road less travelled, for blurring borders, and for lives that too often go unnoticed."
Why it matters: Gatlif directed more than 20 films over a career dedicated to Roma culture, and was working on a new historical project in Arles at the time of his death — a body of work whose final entry remains unfinished. France's culture minister's tribute underlines his institutional standing as one of European cinema's most persistent chroniclers of marginalized lives.
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