Géraldine Nakache

Origins and early life

Géraldine Nakache was born at Suresnes, just west of Paris, on 16 February 1980, to the same parents as her brother, the director Olivier Nakache: a father who managed computer systems and a mother who kept accounts, both Jewish, from the Jewish community of Algeria that came to France after independence in the Sephardi exodus of the early 1960s. She grew up in that western suburb and made it the subject of her work.

Work and career

With Hervé Mimran she wrote and directed Tout ce qui brille in 2010, in which she and Leïla Bekhti play two friends from a housing estate at La Garenne-Colombes who talk their way into the smart Paris they can see from the train; it drew more than a million and a half spectators and a César nomination for best first film in 2011. She had begun as a television presenter and worked as an actress for Cédric Klapisch, Danièle Thompson and her brother, and she directed again with Nous trois ou rien and Mine de rien.

Her second film as director, J'irai où tu iras in 2019, cast Leïla Bekhti again as a sister she has to drive across France, and confirmed a body of work built almost entirely on female friendship.