Dominique Othenin-Girard (born 13 February 1958) is a Swiss-French

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

, producer and

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

. He is known for films such as '' Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers'', '' The Crusaders'' and '' After Darkness'' which was nominated for a

Golden Bear The Golden Bear (german: Goldener Bär) is the highest prize awarded for the best film at the Berlin International Film Festival. The bear is the heraldic animal of Berlin, featured on both the coat of arms and flag of Berlin. History The winn ...

Award. Othenin-Girard is also active in promoting awareness for

Down syndrome Down syndrome or Down's syndrome, also known as trisomy 21, is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21. It is usually associated with physical growth delays, mild to moderate intellectual dis ...

Early years

Dominique Othenin-Girard was born in 1958 in

Le Locle Le Locle (; german: Luggli) is a Communes of Switzerland, municipality in the Canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. It is situated in the Jura Mountains, a few kilometers from the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds. It is the third smallest city in Switz ...

Neuchâtel , neighboring_municipalities= Auvernier, Boudry, Chabrey (VD), Colombier, Cressier, Cudrefin (VD), Delley-Portalban (FR), Enges, Fenin-Vilars-Saules, Hauterive, Saint-Blaise, Savagnier , twintowns = Aarau (Switzerland), Besançon (France), ...

, Switzerland, to French painter Ivan Othenin-Girard and Sonia Calame. His early years were spent traveling to lands that were in culturally different from his native Switzerland; first for an extended stay in Greece and then to live in Iran where his father established the Fine Arts Program in Tehran. At 7 years old he returned to Switzerland with his mother, brother and sister, where he remained until going to the United States as an exchange student when he was 16 years old. He began studying photography and was accepted at the

London Film School London Film School (LFS) is a film school in London and is situated in a converted brewery in Covent Garden, London, neighbouring Soho, a hub of the UK film industry. It is the oldest film school in the UK.

Film director

Othenin-Girard graduated from the

with a Masters of Arts in directing and editing. In 1982 he founded his own production company, Dog Productions, to produce, write and direct his first feature film, the psychosocial thriller ''After Darkness'' (1984), which was nominated for a

at the 35th Berlin International Film Festival. He continued to direct film for the TSR and British HTV until 1987 when he moved to Los Angeles. An opportunity to direct the horror movie ''Night Angel'' showed Othenin-Girard's talent in this genre, and he went on to direct and co-write '' Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers''. In 1990, Othenin-Girard’s sister-in-law, who has

, moved in with his family. This inspired him to tell the story of a family with a child with Down's syndrome. To accomplish this he founded the production company Alhena Films SA in Los Angeles to co-write and direct the family drama ''Sandra: c’est la vie'' (1992). He took this theme up again by co-writing and directing the German television film ''Florian: Love with All His Heart'', which was RTL's highest rated film and received praise from Down syndrome advocate groups. In the 1990s and 2000s Othenin-Girard worked in Germany, the US, and Italy, directing films on topics as diverse as organ transplant and action thrillers. During this period one of his major works was '' The Crusaders'', an epic romantic miniseries about the Christian crusaders in the 11th century. He continued producing film for television, for

RTS RTS may refer to: Medicine * Rape trauma syndrome, the psychological trauma experienced by a rape victim * Revised Trauma Score, a system to evaluate injuries secondary to violent trauma * Rubinstein–Taybi syndrome, a condition characterized by ...

. After 35 years mostly outside his native land he returned to Switzerland in 2010 to direct, co-create and co-write a 4-hour historical docudrama, ''Les Suisses'', chronicling the history of the Swiss Federation from the 14th to the 19th century. The epic story would take three years to complete and was shot French, German, and Italian; it would represent Othenin-Girard's tribute to his homeland. In the winter of 1999, Othenin-Girard first traveled to China. In 2007 Othenin-Girard went to Shanghai when his film ''

Der Todestunnel ''Der Todestunnel'', known in Italian as ''1200º: La Verità della Tunnel della Morte'' is a joint production television movie filmed in Austria and Italy, and has both Austrian and Italian actors speaking in their native languages. Plot The fi ...

'' (2004) inspired by the

Mont Blanc Tunnel The Mont Blanc Tunnel is a highway tunnel between France and Italy, under the Mont Blanc mountain in the Alps. It links Chamonix, Haute-Savoie, France with Courmayeur, Aosta Valley, Italy, via the French Route Nationale 205 and the Italian T ...

tragedy was nominated for the Shanghai Magnolia Award. These trips were only the start of many which would culminate in a more permanent move. Othenin-Girard is now based in China where he is collaborating with local production companies and is involved in writing and directing his next feature films.

Theatre director

In 2012, Othenin-Girard produced and directed the one woman show by Rachel Monnat "Rachel et ses Amants". The performance work went to the 2013 Avignon Theater Festival and received rave reviews in the press, before beginning a European Tour (2014). Currently, Othenin-Girard is one of the Artist committed to the Khloros International Concerts. In 2013 he directed the Khloros Concert "Siem Réap" in Angkor Vat, which was aired live and transmitted in Phnom Peng Royal Park, in 2014, he co-directed the filming of the Khloros Concert at the Forbidden City Concert Hall, Beijing, (with

ARTE Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, plus ...

and CCTV) and in 2015, Othenin-Girard will direct the German opera "Freischutz" (Weber) at the Guangzhou Opera House.

Partial Filmography

Film and Television

Nominations and awards

(For films directed, including category of best actor)

References

External links

*
RTS.CH Les Suisses (2013)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Othenin-Girard, Dominique 1958 births Living people People from Le Locle Alumni of the London Film School Swiss film directors Swiss screenwriters Male screenwriters French-language film directors Horror film directors Swiss-French people