Agnès Jaoui
Born on October 19, 1964, in Antony, Agnès Jaoui devoted herself to an artistic career. She entered the conservatory at the age of seventeen to study classical singing, while also studying literature in hypokhâgne at the Lycée Henri-IV in Paris, before attending Patrice Chéreau’s classes at the Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre from 1984 onwards. Under his direction, she embarked on an acting career with the film Hôtel de France (1986).
In 1987, her meeting with actor Jean-Pierre Bacri in a play by Harold Pinter proved decisive. Together, they went on to write several plays that were later adapted for the cinema: Cuisine et dépendances (1992), directed by Philippe Muyl, and Un air de famille (1996), directed by Cédric Klapisch, for which they won the César Award for Best Screenplay. They also co-wrote the screenplay for Smoking / No Smoking (1993) and appeared in Alain Resnais’s On connaît la chanson (1997). The couple then made Le Goût des autres (1999), Comme une image (2004, winner of the Best Screenplay Award at the Cannes Film Festival), and Parlez-moi de la pluie (2007).
Agnès Jaoui also appeared without Bacri in several films, including Alain Corneau’s Le Cousin (1998), Christophe Blanc’s Une femme d’extérieur (1999), Laurent Bouhnik’s 24 heures de la vie d’une femme (2001), François Favrat’s Le Rôle de sa vie (2003), alongside Karine Viard, and Richard Dembo’s La Maison de Nina (2004).
Although Agnès Jaoui thus devoted her career primarily to cinema, she returned to her earlier passion in 2004, when Olivier Gluzman suggested that she perform a series of songs. A lover of classical music, rock, jazz and French popular music alike, she found herself naturally drawn towards flamenco and the Spanish and Portuguese languages for inspiration.
She consequently recorded an album of Latin music entitled Canta (2006). Accompanied by guitarists Dimas Martinez Dibost and Roberto Gonzalez Hurtado, as well as Vincent Ségal, Agnès Jaoui moves from fado to bossa nova and from bolero to samba with a warm, pure and sensual voice. The album also features duets with Maria Bethânia (“Samba em preludio”) and Misia (“Fado do retorno”). The following year, the album received a Victoire de la Musique award in the World Music category.
Agnès Jaoui returned in 2009 with Dans Mon Pays, on which Latin rhythms still predominate despite the inclusion of two songs in French. On one of the tracks, Angolan artist Bonga joins his voice with Agnès Jaoui’s. In 2014, she took part alongside Natalie Dessay and Helena Noguerra in the Rio - Paris project, devoted to a varied selection of covers from the Brazilian musical heritage. The following year saw the release of her third solo album, Nostalgias, on which, accompanied by her usual musicians, she sings in Spanish, French, Arabic and Hebrew.