ABDELLATIF KECHICHE

Abdellatif Kechiche was born in 1960. He started out as an actor in both theatre and cinema before turning his hand to directing. Some of his noted theatre performances include Garcia lorca and Edouardo Manet. He also staged a play by Fernando Arrabal at the Avignon festival.
In 1984 he was given the leading role in Abdelkrim bahloul's first full-length feature film “Mint Tea”. Kechiche went on to act in “Bezness” directed by nouri bouzid and “The Innocents” directed by André téchiné. In 2000, Abdellatif Kechiche got behind the camera for the very first time to write and direct “Blame it on Voltaire”.

The film tells the story of a somewhat idealistic immigrant trying to make a life for himself on the streets of Paris. Three years later, Kechiche, brought together the language of Marivaux with the heartbreak of adolescent love in the film “Games of Love and Chance”. He then wrote and directed “The Secret of the Grain” (aka “Couscous”), the story of an exhausted father and his family, with the beautiful light of Sète as a backdrop to the drama.
For “Black Venus”, Kechiche was inspired by the extraordinary but true story of Saartjie baartman who was known at the beginning of the 19th century as the “hottentot Venus”. Through this piece of filmmaking he continues to question the audience and explore our relationship to difference and to humanity.