Background
Gatlif was born in Algiers to a Kabyle father and a Romani mother.
Gatlif was born in Algiers to a Kabyle father and a Romani mother.
After his childhood there, Gatlif arrived in France in 1960 following the Algerian War of Independence. Gatlif struggled for years to break into the film industry, playing in several theatrical productions until directing his first film, Louisiana Tête en ruine, in 1975. He followed it with the 1979 Louisiana Terre au ventre, a story of the Algerian War of Independence.
Since the 1981 film Corre, gitano, Gatlif"s work has been focused on the Romani people of Europe, from whom he partially traces his descent.
This feature-length musical film, often mislabelled as a documentary, deals with gypsy culture throughout the world around the theme of their music and dance. Foreign Vincent Ostria, then journalist at the Cahiers du Cinéma, it was "the most genuine film of the year (1993 editor"s note)." A year later, Gatlif brought the world of the author J. M. G. Le Clézio to the screen in Mondo (1994).
His film Transylvania also premiered at Cannes in May 2006.