Renowned French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Thorn, celebrated for his commitment to socially conscious filmmaking and for co-founding the independent film organization l’ACID, has passed away at the age of 78.
According to French news outlets, Thorn, born on January 24, 1947, in Paris, passed away suddenly on July 5. Known for his dedication to depicting the struggles of workers and immigrants, his films often portrayed their efforts to reclaim their rights and dignity.
Thorn first gained significant attention with his 1968 documentary Dare To Struggle, Dare To Win (Oser lutter, oser vaincre).
This film documented a pivotal strike at the Renault-Flins car plant amid the widespread social upheavals of France in 1968, which saw a remarkable alliance between workers and students. It is still regarded as one of his most influential works both in France and internationally.
In a 2023 interview with the audiovisual cooperative Les Mutins de Pangée, Thorn shared his motivations for making the film, driven by a need to document the workers’ perspective of the protests.
“I realized we needed to capture the workers’ movement. The barricades in the Latin Quarter were insufficient… with ten million strikers, the scale was enormous,” he explained. “I became fixated on the idea of filming inside a factory.”
“We didn’t have video back then. We filmed on 16mm. The real challenge was securing cameras and film, especially since the film industry was also striking,” he recalled.
“A group of about a hundred young filmmakers, inspired by Chris Marker and his work on Far From Vietnam, came together to actively support the strike. We pooled our resources, which is how I was able to begin,” Thorn detailed.
Afterward, Thorn spent eight years working as a metal worker at the Alsthom transport vehicle factory in Saint-Ouen, a suburb of Paris.
During this period, he produced the 1973 medium-length film La Grève des ouvriers de Margoline (The Margoline Workers’ Strike), about undocumented workers striking against poor conditions amidst a surge of right-wing anti-immigrant sentiment, and Le Dos au mur, which depicted industrial action at the Alsthom plant.
Thorn ventured into narrative filmmaking with the 1990 film Je t’ai dans la peau, featuring Solveig Dommartin as a nun who falls for a priest and becomes a union and feminist activist. The film debuted in the now-defunct Perspectives cinéma français section of Cannes.
His later works include the documentary On n’est pas des marques de vélo (We’re Not Makes of Bicycle), which explored the emergence of the French Hip-hop movement through the story of a young French and Tunisian man facing deportation.
Thorn’s legacy also includes his instrumental role in supporting independent film as a founding member of France’s Association for the Diffusion of Independent Cinema (l’ACID).
In a press release, l’ACID commemorated Thorn as one of the original 80 signatories of the 1991 manifesto “Resister,” which called for support for independent cinema. This manifesto was a catalyst for the creation of l’ACID, over which Thorn presided from 1992 to 1995.
During his tenure, he also helped establish the parallel l’ACID section at the Cannes Film Festival, which continues to be a vital platform for independent films. “For our association, he is a reminder of the ongoing and future struggles. His films help us remember the reasons why we strive for diversity in film and guard our freedom and autonomy,” l’ACID stated in its tribute.
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