Dominique OtheninGirard born 13 February 1958 is a SwissFrench film director producer and screenwriter He is known for directing such films as After Darkness 1985 which was nominated for a Golden Bear Award and Halloween 5 The Revenge of Michael Myers 1989 as well as for directing the television miniseries The Crusaders 2001 OtheninGirard is also active in promoting awareness for Down syndrome Dominique OtheninGirard was born in 1958 in Le Locle Neuchâtel Switzerland to French painter Ivan OtheninGirard 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 OtheninGirard graduated from the London Film School 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 starring John Hurt with Julian Sands which was nominated for a Golden Bear 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 OtheninGirard directed the 1990 horror film Night Angel and went on to direct and cowrite the 1989 slasher film Halloween 5 The Revenge of Michael Myers In 1990 OtheninGirards sisterinlaw who has Down syndrome moved in with his family This inspired him to tell the story of a family with a child with Downs syndrome To accomplish this he founded the production company Alhena Films SA in Los Angeles to cowrite and direct the family drama Sandra cest la vie 1992 He took this theme up again by cowriting and directing the German television film Florian Love with All His Heart which was RTLs highest rated filmcitation needed and received praise from Down syndrome advocate groups In the 1990s and 2000s OtheninGirard 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 After 35 years mostly outside his native land he returned to Switzerland in 2010 to direct cocreate and cowrite a 4hour 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 OtheninGirards tribute to his homeland Source Article Dominique OtheninGirard from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30
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