Alfred de Montesquiou (born 1978) is a contemporary French reporter, author and documentary film director. He is a laureate of France's highest journalism prize, the Prix Albert Londres.
Biography
Born in 1978 in Paris, Alfred de Montesquiou is a graduate in international relations from Sciences Po, and in journalism from the Columbia Journalism School in New York. He was a foreign correspondent and war correspondent for the Associated Press news agency from 2004 till 2010 first in Haiti then in Sudan, where he was among the only permanently based journalists to extensively cover the Darfur Genocide. He subsequently covered the wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan and became an AP bureau chief in North Africa. In 2010, he transferred to the French news magazine Paris Match as a senior international correspondent. He covered the Arab Springs and the war Syria, and was awarded the 2012 Albert Londres prize for his coverage of the civil war in Libya. In 2013 he received the Interallie Nouveau Cercle literary prize for his essay on the Middle-East "Oumma". In 2015 he was the laureate of the French Press Editors' Association for his investigative work on the war in Donbas between Ukraine and Russia.
As a documentary director and author, he has travelled across Asia along the Silk Road in the footsteps of Marco Polo for a 15 episode series for ARTE, and Amazon Prime.
He conducted a 5 part series across South America, also for Arte.
He has directed several prime time documentaries for French public TV channels France 2 and France 5 on subjects ranging from terrorism investigations to ecology.
He runs the film production company Dreamtime Films.
His documentary "Lebanon, in the heart of chaos" won the Laurier d'Or 2022 TV award for beast feature documentary.
Bibliography & Films
Films :
"Qatar" 2023, France TV, 80 minutes.
"Lebanon, the hear of chaos", 2022, France TV (Laureate of the "Etoile d'or" 2022 TV prize)
"South America: on the road of extremes," 2019, ARTE, 5 hour documentary series (author)
"Animals against terrorism," : Sniffer dogs, de-mining rats, eagles trained against drones etc., France TV, 2018, 1 hour documentary (director)
"Pere Hamel", France TV, 2018, 1 hour investigative documentary (director)
"On The Silk Road" from Venice to Xi'an in the steps of Marco Polo, 2017, ARTE, 8 hour documentary series (author).
"Gorilla War", Congo, France TV, 2015, 1 hour documentary (co-director)
Books :
"La Route des Extrêmes", Paris 2019, Ed. Gallimard / Arte Editions
"Silk Road", Paris, 2017, Ed. Le Chêne/ Arte Editions