GADJO DILO

Born in 1948, in Algiers, Michel Dahamani (Tony) Gatlif is of both Algerian and gypsy descent. It is in his dual origins that he has found the inspiration for most of his films. His second feature film, La terre au ventre (1978), for example, refers to the Algerian war. Made in 1982, Les princes is an uncompromising description of gypsies who have settled in a faceless suburb. It is Ģan act of love, a passionate film in which the director sets about defending and describing the gypsy people with forceful eloquenceģ (Ch. Bosseno). Sensitive to marginalized people, he filmed La rue du départ in 1985, followed by Pleure pas my love (1988), with Fanny Ardant, about the dramatic passion between a teenager who has grown up with the magic of cinema and a movie star. Gatlif spent 1992 and 1993 shooting the award-winning Latcho drom, a feature-length documentary which deals with gypsy culture throughout the world, while focussing on the theme of their music and dance. A year later, Gatlif brought the world of the author Le Clézio to the screen in Mondo (1994). This was followed in 1997 by Gadjo dilo, of which journalist Jacques Maigne wrote, in a letter to Gatlif: ĢThis film resembles you, Tony, like no other, simply because in it, you confront, head on, the heart of things. No one else has shown gypsies the way you haveģ.