Philippe Harel

After studying at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, Philippe Harel turns to the world of images and entertainment, working in a variety of functions: video cameraman and editor from 1975 to 1985, theater director and producer of television reports, industrial films and commercials. He is soon to sign short films: Tentative d'échec in 1980, and Deux pièces cuisine, nominated for a César Award for Best Short Film in 1989.

In 1992, Philippe Harel directs his first feature film, French Summer, in which he examines the shortcomings of his contemporaries. This highly acclaimed film wins him the SACD New Talent Prize in 1993. After The Story of a Boy Who Wanted to Be Kissed, he co-writes the screenplay for Pierre Salvadori's The Apprentices. In 1997, he signs two films that testify to his eclecticism: The Banned Woman with Isabelle Carré, presented in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and Hikers, a successful comedy with Karin Viard and Benoît Poelvoorde. The Belgian actor reunites with Harel in 2001 for Ghislain Lambert's Bicycle.

Also an actor, in 1999, Philippe Harel plays one of the two leads in Whatever, an adaptation of Michel Houellebecq's disenchanted novel. After a detour into documentary films (Journal intime des affaires en cours, co-directed by Denis Robert) and thrillers (Tristan, in 2003), he returns to comedy with Tu vas rire mais je te quitte, which recounts the sentimental and professional setbacks of an actress, and Les Randonneurs à Saint-Tropez, the sequel, eleven years later, to his biggest public success : Hikers.