Marcel Trillat is a French journalist and documentary filmmaker. A communist, he directed many documentaries about the living conditions of workers, women and immigrants in France. He also did documentaries about French government's response to the Algerian War and the Gulf War and, more recently, religious cults and public hospitals. He co-directed three documentaries with Maurice Failevic, one of which is about the history of communism in France. He was a director of France Télévisions, France's public television broadcaster, for five years.
Trillat began his career in television as an intern at the Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française in 1966. He first worked on a program called Cinq colonnes à la une. He was fired for his politics in 1968. He subsequently joined CREPAC and UNICITE, two television labor unions, as well as the General Confederation of Labour. Meanwhile, he worked for Radio Lorraine Coeur d'Acier, an independent radio station associated with the CGT in Longwy, Meurthe-et-Moselle. He returned to public broadcasting in 1981, when he was elected as the deputy director of the newscast on Antenne 2, later known as France 2, until 2006. He also served on the board of directors of France Télévisions from 2001 to 2006. Trillat directed his first documentary, Étranges étrangers, in 1970. It showed the living conditions of Portuguese and African immigrants in Aubervilliers and Nanterre. In 1981, he directed a documentary about the Paris massacre of 1961. A decade later, in 1991, he directed a documentary about the Gulf War. He also said on live television that the footage of the war was restricted by the United States. In 1994, he directed Travailleurs fantômes. Éric Delagneau, he co-directed Témoins de Jehovah : demain l'Apocalypse, a documentary which describes the Jehovah's Witness as a cult, in 1998. He also directed Les Enfants de la dalle, a documentary about children who grew up in Corbeil-Essonnes, in 1998. With Maurice Failevic, Trillat co-directed Les Prolos, a documentary about the French working class in the 21st century, in 2001. A year later, they worked together on 300 jours de colère, another documentary about the factory workers of the Mossley Group in Hellemmes-Lille, northern France, who bargain collectively for severance packages. In 2003, he directed SOS hôpital, 24 heures dans la vie d'un hosto, a documentary about the poor state of French public hospitals. In 2005, he directed Femmes précaires, a documentary about women trapped in precarious work. In 2007, he directed Silence dans la vallée, a documentary about workers in Nouzonville, Ardennes who lose their jobs when their jobs are outsources overseas. In 2010, he co-directed another documentary with Failevic: called L'Atlantide, une histoire du communisme, it chronicled the history of communism in France. In 2014, he directed a documentary about the trials and tribulations of undocumented immigrants in Paris. Trillat openly supported the Left Front in 2011. In 2015, he signed a petition to maintain the right to protest in spite of the state of emergency.
