While the French volleyball team will defend its Olympic title in a few weeks in Paris, one of its former players is also a renowned filmmaker.
Volleyball has been an Olympic sport since the Tokyo Games in 1964. At the Paris Games this summer, France will be among the favorites and will defend its title acquired in 2021 in Tokyo. This title, the first in history for French volleyball, came in the wake of a winning Olympiad for French team sports, with the two gold medals in handball, the men’s silver medal in basketball and the bronze medal for the women’s basketball players. It was even the first French medal for volleyball, for both men and women.
Among the players with the most caps for the French volleyball team, Élie Chouraqui has 112 caps. Although he is mainly known for his cinematographic work and for his musical comedy “The Ten Commandments”, co-written with Pascal Obispo, the 73-year-old director was also a professional volleyball player in the late 1960s and early 1970s. “I wouldn’t have been able to make films if I hadn’t played volleyball,” he explains. “On a field or a film set, the principle is the same: you have to direct men in a space and manage to convey what you want to do.”
Three times French champion with Racing Club de France (1969, 1970 and 1971), Élie Chouraqui was also captain of the French espoir team, and participated in the world championships. He ended his career quite early, at the age of 25, to turn to cinema.
“It’s partly thanks to volleyball that I got into this environment,” he repeated in an interview with the French Volleyball Federation. “When I was about 20, I was looking for work, an actor I really like, named Charles Gérard, who was passionate about volleyball, said to me: “I might have an idea for you.” He introduced me to Claude Lelouch, who I became very close to. I started working with him.”
Élie Chouraqui has remained quite close to volleyball, and was notably a consultant for France Télévision during the Rio Olympic Games in 2016. The man who never took part in the Games, “one of the great tragedies of his life” in his own words, has however always been a regular spectator “The Olympic Games are the only competition that I follow completely as a spectator. It’s the time when I’m most interested in athletics, swimming, wrestling, judo…”