The French film director Tony Gatlif, who has died aged 77, was regularly described as “cinema’s Gypsy auteur”, so often did his films focus on Roma communities and their music. Between 1975 and 2025, Gatlif directed more than 20 films, beginning with La Tête en Ruine (The Ruined Head). That film was never released, and he struggled throughout the 1970s and 80s to get funding for his films, and then to find a distributor, before finally breaking through with Latcho Drom (1993, the title being Romany for “good journey”). An international arthouse hit, Latcho Drom is a meditative travelogue that blends footage of staged musical performances in contemporary Roma communities in Istanbul, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, France and Spain, with historic recreations of such communities in Rajasthan and an Egyptian oasis.
Latcho Drom conveys the centuries-long migration from Asia to western Europe of a nomadic people we now call Gypsies or Roma, as a fable told entirely in images and music. There is no voiceover, talking heads or text; instead Gatlif lets the striking settings and musical performances enchant viewers. It is an idealised portrait of the Roma, not a documentary (as some labelled it), and while Gatlif portrays the discrimination and persecution Roma communities experience, his emphasis was on celebrating Roma beauty and artistry.
