Agnès Jaoui

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Agnès Jaoui is a French actress, screenwriter, film director and singer, born on 19 October 1964 in Antony, France. She has won six César Awards, three Lumières Awards and a Best Screenplay prize at the Cannes Film Festival. She was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Her parents, Hubert Jaoui and Gyza Jaoui, were writers. Jaoui is of Tunisian Jewish descent and moved to Paris when she was 8. She began acting in theatre during high school and studied at Cours Florent when she was 15. In 1987, Patrice Chéreau gave her a role in Hôtel de France at the Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre, where she also met Jean-Pierre Bacri, who would become a close colleague.

Jaoui and Bacri wrote many works together. They created the films Smoking/No Smoking (1993), Un air de famille (1996), and Same Old Song (On connaît la chanson) (1997). Their screenplays won multiple César Awards. Jaoui also won a César for Best Supporting Actress in 1997. She directed her first feature, The Taste of Others (Le Goût des autres) in 2000, written with Bacri. The film was a big hit in France, won several César Awards (including Best Film and Best Original Screenplay) and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

In 2004 she directed Look at Me (Comme une image), which won a Cannes prize for Best Screenplay. She acted in La maison de Nina (2005) and released a Latin-influenced music album, Canta, in 2006. Jaoui returned to cinema with Parlez-moi de la pluie (2008). In 2012 she directed Au bout du conte (Under the Rainbow), praised for its writing and humor. She also released another music album, Dans Mon Pays, in 2009.

Jaoui studied music in a conservatory as a teenager and later pursued singing. Her later work includes directing and performing in stage and film projects. In 2024, she directed a revival of Baldassare Galuppi’s opera L'uomo femina at the Opéra de Dijon, which later moved to the Opéra Royal in Versailles.

Personal life: Jaoui is the daughter of Gyza and Hubert Jaoui, has a brother Laurent Jaoui, and was in a long relationship with Bacri from 1987 to 2012. She and Bacri remained collaborators after their relationship ended and adopted two children from Brazil in 2012. She is a member of the 50/50 collective, which promotes gender equality and diversity in cinema.

The article notes that several relatives on her father’s side were harmed during the Hamas attacks on October 7.