Marcel Trillat

Marcel Trillat (4 April 1940 – 18 September 2020) was a French journalist and documentary filmmaker. A communist, he directed many documentaries about the living conditions of workers, women and immigrants in France. He also did documentaries about French government's response to the Algerian War and the Gulf War and religious cults and public hospitals. He co-directed three documentaries with Maurice Failevic, one of which is about the history of communism in France. He was a director of France Télévisions, France's public television broadcaster, for five years.

Marcel Trillat
Born(1940-04-04)4 April 1940
Seyssinet-Pariset, Isère, France
Died18 September 2020(2020-09-18) (aged 80)
Paris, France[1]
OccupationJournalist, documentary filmmaker

Early life

Marcel Trillat was born on 4 April 1940 in Seyssinet-Pariset Isère, France.[2][3] He grew up on a farm, and his father was a farmer.[3] He joined the French Communist Party at the age of 14.[3] He attended a normal school to become a schoolteacher.[3]

Career

Trillat began his career in television as an intern at the Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française in 1966.[3][4] He first worked on a program called Cinq colonnes à la une.[4][5] He was fired for his politics in 1968.[4][5] He subsequently joined CREPAC and UNICITE, two television labor unions,[4] as well as the General Confederation of Labour.[3] Meanwhile, he worked for Radio Lorraine Coeur d'Acier, an independent radio station associated with the CGT in Longwy, Meurthe-et-Moselle.[4][5] He returned to public broadcasting in 1981, when he was elected as the deputy director of the newscast on Antenne 2, later known as France 2, until 2006.[2][4] He also served on the board of directors of France Télévisions from 2001 to 2006.[5]

Trillat directed his first documentary, Étranges étrangers, in 1970.[4] It showed the living conditions of Portuguese and African immigrants in Aubervilliers and Nanterre.[4] In 1981, he directed a documentary about the Paris massacre of 1961.[4] A decade later, in 1991, he directed a documentary about the Gulf War.[4] He also said on live television that the footage of the war was restricted by the United States.[3] In 1994, he directed Travailleurs fantômes.[4] With Éric Delagneau, he co-directed Témoins de Jehovah : demain l'Apocalypse, a documentary which describes the Jehovah's Witness as a cult, in 1998.[4] He also directed Les Enfants de la dalle, a documentary about children who grew up in Corbeil-Essonnes, in 1998.[4]

With Maurice Failevic, Trillat co-directed Les Prolos, a documentary about the French working class in the 21st century, in 2001.[4] A year later, they worked together on 300 jours de colère, another documentary about the factory workers of the Mossley Group in Hellemmes-Lille, northern France, who bargain collectively for severance packages.[6] In 2003, he directed SOS hôpital, 24 heures dans la vie d'un hosto, a documentary about the poor state of French public hospitals.[4] In 2005, he directed Femmes précaires, a documentary about women trapped in precarious work.[4] In 2007, he directed Silence dans la vallée, a documentary about workers in Nouzonville, Ardennes who lose their jobs when their jobs are outsourced overseas.[3] In 2010, he co-directed another documentary with Failevic: called L'Atlantide, une histoire du communisme, it chronicled the history of communism in France.[6] In 2014, he directed a documentary about the trials and tribulations of undocumented immigrants in Paris.[7]

Trillat openly supported the Left Front in 2011.[8] In 2015, he signed a petition to maintain the right to protest in spite of the state of emergency.[9]

Trillat died 18 September 2020[10] in Paris, aged 80.[1]

Personal life

With Catherine Dehaut, Trillat had a son, Julien.[3]

References
  1. "Marcel Trillat, journaliste et documentariste, est mort". Le Monde (in French). Retrieved 20 September 2020.
  2. "Trillat, Marcel (1940-....) forme internationale". Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
  3. Grandchamp, Sybille (4 October 2007). "L'ouvrier de la première heure". Libération. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
  4. Baudry, Claude (6 June 2006). "Marcel Trillat, l'homme des sans-visage". L'Humanité. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
  5. "Marcel Trillat". France culture. 21 June 2008. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
  6. Gontier, Samuel (28 December 2016). "Maurice Failevic, un réalisateur engagé "jusqu'au bout"". Télérama. Retrieved 29 December 2016.
  7. Psenny, Daniel (1 December 2014). "Des immigrés perdus dans la Ville Lumière". Le Monde. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
  8. Kaci, Mina (18 October 2011). "Ils et elles votent Front de gauche". L'Humanité. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
  9. "État d'urgence : 58 personnalités revendiquent la liberté de manifester". Le Point. 1 December 2015. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
  10. "The death of Marcel Trillat". Pledge Times. Retrieved 18 September 2020.
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