Thierry Michel

Filmmaker, photographer and journalist, from coal mines to prisons, from Brazil and the Maghreb to black Africa, Thierry Michel denounces the world’s distresses and revolts, sometimes mixing fiction and reality. Born on October 13, 1952 in Charleroi, Belgium, in an industrial region nicknamed “Le Pays Noir”, Thierry Michel began studying at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion in Brussels at the age of 16. In 1976, he joined Belgian television, where he produced numerous reports from around the world. He then moved on to the cinema. He alternated between two feature-length fiction films, “Hiver 60” and “Issue de secours”, and numerous internationally acclaimed, award-winning and broadcast documentaries.

These include “Gosses de Rio”, “Zaïre, le cycle du serpent”, “Donka, radioscopie d’un hôpital africain”, “Mobutu, roi du Zaïre”, “Iran sous le voile des apparences”, “Congo River”, “Katanga Business”, “L’homme qui répare les femmes”, “Enfants du Hasard” and “L’empire du Silence”.

Thierry Michel also taught “cinéma du réel” for 20 years at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion and until 2022 at the University of Liège in Belgium, and has led numerous seminars on documentary writing and directing around the world. He is the author of several photo/text books on Africa.

He has received numerous honours.