Born in 1948 in Algiers under the name Michel Dahmani, Tony Gatlif left the Algerian capital at the start of the 60s and went to France, where he lived experiences of delinquency and went through juvenile correction centers until he managed to make his way in cinema. In 1975, he debuted La tête en Ruines, and directed, in the early 1980s, Corre Gitano, his first work on the condition of the Gypsy people. After Les Princes (1983), which earned him critical acclaim for the first time, he continued his obsession with Roma culture in Latcho Drom (1992), a documentary on gypsy music that won the Un Certain Regard award at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1997, with the acclaimed Gadjo Dilo, about a young Frenchman who travels to Romania in search of a missing singer, he won the Silver Leopard at the Locarno Festival. His films were present several times in the Official Section of the Cannes Film Festival, which awarded him, in 2004 the Best Director Award, for the autobiographical Exils. Tom Medina is his 19th film, preceded by other important works such as Korkoro (2009), The Outraged (2012), Geronimo (2014) or Djam (2017).