ÉLIE CHOURAQUI

Élie Chouraqui was born on 3 July 1950 in Paris to a Sephardi immigrant family.

Coming from a family of four children, nothing predisposed him to pursue an artistic career and become a director, screenwriter, producer, actor and writer.

In 1966 he became an international volleyball player, captain of the team, and played more than 120 times with the Volleyball French team. In 1971, at 21 years old, he discovered film.

Since he started in the movies at the end of the 1970s, Elie Chouraqui has established himself as an unclassifiable artist who has been able to disconcert critics with his eclecticism and seduce audiences with the energy and passion that animates his works. And for good reason, Elie Chouraqui has staged very diverse subjects.

In 1974, his encounter with Anouk Aimée was decisive. For her, he wrote MON PREMIER AMOUR, his first film, which was nominated four times at the French César Award.

After directing for French television an adaptation of Emile Zola’s novel Une page d’amour, he wrote and directed QU’EST-CE QUI FAIT COURIR DAVID?, which he also produced, as he produced or co-produced all his films. In 1984, his movie PAROLES ET MUSIQUE, starting Catherine Deneuve, Christophe Lambert, Richard Anconina, and Charlotte Gainsbourg received three César Award nominations.

Elie Chouraqui directed Jean-Hugues Anglade alongside Lorraine Bracco, Sami Frey, and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi in LES MENTEURS (1995), which received a standing ovation when screened in Berlin. His film HARRISON’s FLOWERS (2001), starting Andie McDowell, Adrien Brody, David Strathairn, Brendan Gleeson, and Elias Koteas was shown at the San Sebastian Festival and many other film festivals.

Chouraqui wrote, produced, and directed THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, a musical that was seen by more than 1.8 million people in France before touring in Italy, Japan, Belgium, Switzerland, South Korea (where its theatrical trope celebrated surpassing 800 performances in 2007), and the United States.

At the same time, Chouraqui co-produced Takashi Koizumi’s film, AME AGARU, Kurosawa’s latest screenplay and wrote his first novel: La vie n’est qu’une ombre qui passe. With Israeli philosopher and intellectual André Chouraqui he co-wrote an essay, Le sage et l’artiste.His next musical was SPARTACUS the GLADIATOR, featuring the music of Maxime Leforestier. Followed by the film O JERUSALEM, adapted from the best-selling book by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins, and starring Saïd Taghmaoui.

In 2009, he directed for the first time an opera, Verdi’s Aïda, as part of the outdoor operas and became co-producer, with Benjamin Patou, of this cultural event.

Critics acclaimed his directing of 2015’s L’ORIGINE DE LA VIOLENCE, which was adapted from Fabrice Humbert’s eponymous book. The movie starred Stanley Weber, César Chouraqui, Richard Berry, Michel Bouquet, Catherine Samie, and Joseph Joffo. At the same time, he became interested again in theater and staged “Le Prénom” and then “Miroirs,” a play he co-wrote, in Tel Aviv, where he has lived since 2016.

In Israel, an Israeli-American-French television channel, I24NEWS asked Elie Chouraqui to do a live show every Sunday evening “Elie sans interdit.” In this show he interviews international personalities from the political, intellectual, and artistic worlds.

In May 2019, he published a book of reflections and memories, Le dictionnaire de ma vie.

In 2020 Elie will direct his next feature film A FRENCH HERO.