Fernand Melgar

Born into a family of Spanish unionists exiled to Tangiers (Morocco). His parents smuggled him in with them when, in 1963, they emigrated to Switzerland as seasonal labourers. In the early eighties, he cut short his business studies in order to found, together with several friends, Le Cabaret Orwell in Lausanne, soon a mecca for French-speaking Switzerland’s underground culture. After endowing the latter night spot with a programme of creative video projections, he became a selftaught, freelance film director and producer. In 1983, he began putting together various expérimental films and iconoclastic reportages for television. In 1985 he joined Climage, a collective to which he belongs to this day, and under whose auspices he has realized around a dozen documentaries, now considered as benchmarks on the topics of immigration and identity. He has also edited several of Jacqueline Veuve’s films, including her Le Journal de Rivesaltes, awarded the 1998 Swiss Film Prize. His documentary – EXIT, the Right to Die – has garnered several international awards, including the prestigious 2006 EBU Golden Link Award for the Best European Co-Production, and the 2006 Swiss Film Prize. Winner of the screenplay competition launched by Télévision Suisse Romande (French-speaking Switzerland’s broadcasting centre) in 2007. In 2008, his most recent documentary The Fortress becomes the Golden Leopard in the International Film Festival Locarno (Filmmakers of the present competition).