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Thierry Michel is a Actor, Director, Scriptwriter and Cinematography Belge born on 13 october 1952 at Charleroi (Belgique)

Thierry Michel

Thierry Michel
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Nationality Belgique
Birth 13 october 1952 (71 years) at Charleroi (Belgique)

Thierry Michel (born 13 October 1952) is a Belgian film director, mostly making social and political documentaries.
His office and company Les films de la passerelle is located in Liège, where he works with the producer Christine Pireaux.
Over a twenty-year period he has made a series of documentaries on different aspects of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).
Taken together his films provide a unique overview of the social, economic and political life of the country.

Biography

Thierry Michel est né à Charleroi en Belgique. À 16 ans, il engage des études de cinéma à l'Institut des arts de diffusion, à Bruxelles. Il y vit les derniers bruissements de mai 68 prélude à un engagement politique.

Au bassin minier et sidérurgique de son enfance, il réalise ses premiers films documentaires Pays Noir, Pays Rouge et Chronique des saisons d'acier. Il y réalise également son premier long métrage de fiction Hiver 60 qui raconte la grande grève insurrectionnelle belge de 1960.
Peu après, alternant documentaires et fictions, il entre une caméra dans les murs d'une prison pour son film Hôtel Particulier.

Ensuite, après ces années d'une quête d'identité et d'enracinement régional et politique, Thierry Michel part vers d'autres continents.
Au Maroc il réalise son deuxième long métrage de fiction Issue de Secours, une œuvre située au cœur du désert.

À la fin des années 1980, au Brésil, Gosses de Rio et À Fleur de Terre revelent le quotidien des gosses de rue et des favelas (bidonvilles). Il y découvre la culture noire, qu'il va approfondir au Zaïre avec Zaïre, le cycle du serpent, un portrait de la nomenclature et des laissés pour compte de la société zaïroise..

Bref retour au pays, il filme un ministre déchu au cœur d'un scandale politico-policier qui ébranle la Belgique (La Grâce perdue d'Alain Van der Biest) puis retourne en Afrique avec le film Somalie, l'Humanitaire s'en va-t-en guerre.

Quelques mois plus tard, il repart au Zaïre pour y réaliser le film Les Derniers Colons traitant de l'héritage colonial et la présence blanche dans ce pays après 35 ans d'indépendance.

Il tourne Nostalgie post-coloniale, un documentaire sur le rapport historique entre Zaïrois et colons blancs durant les 35 années d'indépendance du Congo/Zaïre suivi de Donka, radioscopie d'un hôpital africain, portrait de l'hôpital de Conakry en Guinée distingué en Europe et aux États-Unis.
Après la chute du dictateur zaïrois, Thierry Michel réalise un documentaire historique Mobutu roi du Zaïre.
Après 10 années et sept films réalisés en Afrique, Thierry Michel part en République Islamique d'Iran réalisant Iran, sous le voile des apparences portrait d'une société fracturée.

Thierry Michel remonte ensuite le fleuve Congo puis continue avec Congo River peignant les profondeurs de la forêt équatoriale et du fleuve.

Il figure parmi les signataires du Manifeste pour la culture wallonne de 1983.



« Les clés sont les mêmes, ici ou là-bas. Les distances avec l'autre s'abolissent. L'homme est le même partout, les pulsions de vie et de mort s'affrontent de façon identique. Et je n'ai pas fini de chercher. »



Usually with

Source : Wikidata

Filmography of Thierry Michel (9 films)

Display filmography as list

Actor

Congo River, 1h56
Directed by Thierry Michel
Origin Belgique
Genres Documentary
Themes Documentary films about historical events
Actors Thierry Michel
Roles Narrateur (voix)
Rating75% 3.750583.750583.750583.750583.75058
The film takes us from the mouth to the source of the second largest river basin in the world, that of the Congo River (the largest is the Amazon). All along its 4371 km, we discover places that have seen the turbulent history of this country, while archives remind us of the mythological figures that created its destiny: explorers such as Livingstone and Stanley, the colonial kings Léopold II and Baudouin I and leaders such as Lumumba, Mobutu and Kabila.
Iran, Fundamentalism vs. Modernism
Directed by Thierry Michel
Origin France
Genres Documentary
Actors Luc Jabon, Thierry Michel
Roles Narrator (voice)
Rating68% 3.434253.434253.434253.434253.43425
The Damned
The Damned (1947)
, 1h40
Directed by René Clément
Origin France
Genres Drama, War, Thriller
Themes Seafaring films, Transport films, Submarine films, Political films
Actors Marcel Dalio, Florence Marly, Henri Vidal, Fosco Giachetti, Paul Bernard, Michel Auclair
Rating70% 3.5255153.5255153.5255153.5255153.525515
As Germany is in the throes of losing World War II, a number of wealthy Nazis and some French sympathizers head for South America in a German submarine leaving from Oslo. The film's narrator is a French doctor (Henri Vidal) who has been kidnapped to tend a sick woman, Hilde Garosi (Florence Marly), the wife of one man and the lover of another, both aboard. The doctor realizes he will be murdered at any point once the woman has recovered so he tries various stratagems to escape. All fail.

Director

L'Homme qui répare les femmes
Directed by Thierry Michel
Origin Belgique
Genres Documentary
Themes Documentaire sur une personnalité, Documentary films about health care
Rating77% 3.8692653.8692653.8692653.8692653.869265
Prix Sakharov 2014, le Docteur Mukwege est internationalement connu comme l’homme qui répare ces milliers de femmes violées durant 20 ans de conflits à l’Est de la République Démocratique du Congo, un pays parmi les plus pauvres de la planète, mais au sous-sol extrêmement riche. Sa lutte incessante pour mettre fin à ces atrocités et dénoncer l’impunité dont jouissent les coupables, dérange. Fin 2012, le Docteur est l’objet d'une nouvelle tentative d’assassinat, à laquelle il échappe miraculeusement. Menacé de mort, ce médecin au destin exceptionnel vit dorénavant cloîtré dans son hôpital de Bukavu, sous la protection des Casques bleus des Nations unies. Mais il n’est plus seul à lutter. A ses côtés, ces femmes auxquelles il a rendu leur intégrité physique et leur dignité, devenues grâce à lui de véritables activistes de la paix, assoiffées de justice.
L'affaire Chebeya, 1h36
Directed by Thierry Michel
Genres Documentary
Themes Films set in Africa, Documentary films about law, Documentary films about politics, Political films
Rating68% 3.439593.439593.439593.439593.43959
Floribert Chebeya was a human rights activist who had survived Mobutu Sese Seko's dictatorship and the subsequent civil war. On 2 June 2010, his body was found in a car near the capital, Kinshasa. The police quickly painted a scenario that made Chebeya the routine victim of a crime with sexual connotations. However, this version of the events broke down after an investigation in which the police were implicated. The government agreed to bring some of the highest police officials to justice in a military court, handing out stiff sentences to those found guilty and awarding compensation to the victims.
Métamorphose d'une gare, 1h20
Directed by Thierry Michel
Genres Documentary
Themes Transport films, Rail transport films, Documentary films about technology

The new Guillemins station in Liège was a huge project undertaken by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who had already directed construction of stations in Zurich, Lisbon and Lyon. The site presented many challenges. The film follows the project from start to end over a nine-year period. It documents the issues, frictions and tension of the project as well as the pride and enthusiasm of the people involved. The result was a modern cathedral of European high-speed rail. The project was controversial, being criticized as being too grandiose, too expensive to maintain and not well-adapted to the Belgian climate. In the process many old buildings were destroyed and the whole neighborhood was disrupted.
Katanga Business, 1h30
Directed by Thierry Michel
Origin Belgique
Genres Documentary
Themes Films set in Africa, Environmental films, La mondialisation, Films about the labor movement, Documentary films about business, Documentary films about environmental issues, Documentaire sur le monde du travail
Rating68% 3.4273053.4273053.4273053.4273053.427305
The province of Katanga in the south east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has huge mineral riches including uranium, zinc, copper and cobalt.
Congo River, 1h56
Directed by Thierry Michel
Origin Belgique
Genres Documentary
Themes Documentary films about historical events
Actors Thierry Michel
Rating75% 3.750583.750583.750583.750583.75058
The film takes us from the mouth to the source of the second largest river basin in the world, that of the Congo River (the largest is the Amazon). All along its 4371 km, we discover places that have seen the turbulent history of this country, while archives remind us of the mythological figures that created its destiny: explorers such as Livingstone and Stanley, the colonial kings Léopold II and Baudouin I and leaders such as Lumumba, Mobutu and Kabila.
Mobutu, King of Zaire, 2h15
Directed by Thierry Michel
Origin Belgique
Genres Documentary
Themes Films set in Africa, Documentaire sur une personnalité, Documentary films about politics, Political films
Rating75% 3.7986553.7986553.7986553.7986553.798655
"Of all the human passions, the appetite for domination is the most inebriating" (St. Augustine)
Winter 1960, 1h30
Directed by Thierry Michel
Genres Drama, Documentary, Historical
Actors Philippe Léotard, Christian Barbier, Yvonne Gradelet, Bert André, Jenny Clève, Ronny Coutteure

En 1960, l'annonce des mesures de régression sociale décidées par le gouvernement belge déclenchent une grève sauvage des travailleurs. Albert et Fred sont aux premiers rangs d'une lutte qui promet d'être chaude et hasardeuse. La grande grève wallonne va alors ébranler la Belgique au plus profond d'elle-même. Violences, manifestations, internationales, drapeaux rouges, drapeaux wallons. Pendant cinq semaines, le pays sera paralysé par un mouvement qui se donnera souvent des airs d'insurrection.

Scriptwriter

L'affaire Chebeya, 1h36
Directed by Thierry Michel
Genres Documentary
Themes Films set in Africa, Documentary films about law, Documentary films about politics, Political films
Roles Writer
Rating68% 3.439593.439593.439593.439593.43959
Floribert Chebeya was a human rights activist who had survived Mobutu Sese Seko's dictatorship and the subsequent civil war. On 2 June 2010, his body was found in a car near the capital, Kinshasa. The police quickly painted a scenario that made Chebeya the routine victim of a crime with sexual connotations. However, this version of the events broke down after an investigation in which the police were implicated. The government agreed to bring some of the highest police officials to justice in a military court, handing out stiff sentences to those found guilty and awarding compensation to the victims.
Métamorphose d'une gare, 1h20
Directed by Thierry Michel
Genres Documentary
Themes Transport films, Rail transport films, Documentary films about technology

The new Guillemins station in Liège was a huge project undertaken by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who had already directed construction of stations in Zurich, Lisbon and Lyon. The site presented many challenges. The film follows the project from start to end over a nine-year period. It documents the issues, frictions and tension of the project as well as the pride and enthusiasm of the people involved. The result was a modern cathedral of European high-speed rail. The project was controversial, being criticized as being too grandiose, too expensive to maintain and not well-adapted to the Belgian climate. In the process many old buildings were destroyed and the whole neighborhood was disrupted.
Katanga Business, 1h30
Directed by Thierry Michel
Origin Belgique
Genres Documentary
Themes Films set in Africa, Environmental films, La mondialisation, Films about the labor movement, Documentary films about business, Documentary films about environmental issues, Documentaire sur le monde du travail
Roles Writer
Rating68% 3.4273053.4273053.4273053.4273053.427305
The province of Katanga in the south east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has huge mineral riches including uranium, zinc, copper and cobalt.
Congo River, 1h56
Directed by Thierry Michel
Origin Belgique
Genres Documentary
Themes Documentary films about historical events
Actors Thierry Michel
Roles Writer
Rating75% 3.750583.750583.750583.750583.75058
The film takes us from the mouth to the source of the second largest river basin in the world, that of the Congo River (the largest is the Amazon). All along its 4371 km, we discover places that have seen the turbulent history of this country, while archives remind us of the mythological figures that created its destiny: explorers such as Livingstone and Stanley, the colonial kings Léopold II and Baudouin I and leaders such as Lumumba, Mobutu and Kabila.