André Djaoui

André Djaoui began his career in advertising and quickly became sales manager of one of the subsidiaries
of the Havas group.

After meeting Martin Gray, he decided on a radical change of professional direction and found himself film producer of his first feature movie in 1981, a film directed by Robert Enrico adapted from the book by Martin Gray : "For those I loved" starring Michael York and Brigitte Fossey. The same year, he co-produced with American partners "Lady Chatterley's lover", a film directed by Just Jaeckin starring Sylvia Krystel.

He worked for a long time with the greatest Italian film-makers, co-producing about twenty films, among which " The family " by Ettore Scola, "The voice of the moon" by Federico Fellini, "The Sorceress" by Marco Bellocchio, "The legende of the Holy Drinker" by Ermanno Olmi. In France, he produced "1001 nights" by Philippe de Broca, a film which launched the career of Catherine Zeta Jones, and also worked with Jean Yanne, Jean-Pierre Mocky and many others.

In 1990, he created "The Audio-visual Encyclopaedia", a series of emblematic documentaries based on portraits of great men made by leading film directors. This series, which he co-produced with France 2, SPOKE, RTVE and NHK, was called "They Changed the World". So were realized portraits of Gershwin by Alain Resnais, Darwin by Peter Greenaway, Vivaldi by Lina Wertmuller, Ben Gourion by Jerry Schatzberg and Tchékov by Nkita Mikhalkov. He participated in the TV series "Writers of the 20th Century" produced by France 3 in which he chose to realize the portrait of Jean Cocteau.

His last film as a producer, "O Jerusalem", adapted from the book of Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins and directed by Elie Chouraqui, was an artistic and commercial disappointment after which he reorientated his activities and started painting with passion. A first exhibition in Paris at Nicolas Deman's Gallery was a real success and other exhibitions are in preparation. André Djaoui is currently writing in collaboration with Philippe Grimbert a play for the theater with two characters : "Retour", which will be played in September 2012 in Paris. He is also writing a monologue, "Réunion de famille", and a second play called "Demain".

André Djaoui is currently finishing a documentary, "Israel My Home", which corresponds to his decision to live in Israel with his family. This documentary will be shown in many universities throughout the world. In 2012 he will co-produce a play, "Rose", written by Martin Sherman which will be played at the Théâtre La Pépinière in Paris. In 2013, he will realize a film adaptation of his play "Retour".