Elisa Sednaoui Dellal

Elisa was born in Italy on December 14th 1987.
She was raised between Egypt, France and Italy and was exposed to a creative and cosmopolitan environment since a very young age.

Throughout the years she has become increasingly interested in cinema and music. Cultivating these passions, as well as working in fashion and acting, has contributed to her artistic formation and the development of a personal aesthetic, which she pursues in her work, both as a subject and as a producer.

She is fluent in Italian, French, English, Spanish and speaks some Arabic.

Elisa has worked as a model in Paris, New York, London and Milan with top photographers for the most prestigious fashion magazines.

Karl Lagerfeld cast her in the lead role in his first short REMEMBER NOW which was released in Spring 2010. She’s been shot for the Pirelli Calender twice: first in 2011 by Karl Lagerfeld and in 2013 by Steve Mc Curry.

FILMS
At the age of 19, while leading a successful career as an international model, Elisa starts acting.

She has starred in:
• ‘EASTERN DRIFT’ aka 'INDIGENE D’EURASIE' by Lithuanian director Sharunas Bartas. Premiered at the Forum section of the Berlin Film Festival 2010. (female lead role)
• ‘BUS PALLADIUM’ by Christopher Thompson and produced by STUDIO CANAL, released in France in March 2010. (female lead role)
• ‘LOVE LASTS THREE YEARS’ by Frederic Beigbeder and distributed by EUROPA, released in France in January 2012.
• ‘THE LEGEND OF KASPAR HAUSER’ by Davide Manuli, with Vincent Gallo, Fabrizio Gifuni and Claudia Gerini, premiered at the Rotterdam Film
Festival in February 2012.
• ‘LES GAMINS’ directed by Anthony Marciano and distributed by GAUMONT, with Alain Chabat, was released in France in April 2013.
• ‘SOAP OPERA’, directed by Alessandro Genovesi, produced by Colorado
Films and distributed by Medusa,with Fabio De Luigi, Diego Abatantuono, Christiana Capotondi, Ale e Franz and Chiara Francini, opened the Rome
Film Festival in October 2014.
To be yet released in EU :
• ‘LIBERTADOR’ by Alberto Arvelo with Edgar Ramirez, Maria Valverde and Danny Houston. Premiered as part of the official competition of the
Toronto International Film Festival in 2013, it was released in the US in 2014 and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at Academy
Awards 2015. In July 2010 Elisa was a member of the Jury of the Paris Film Festival, and in
September 2011 she was in the jury ‘Revelations’ at the Deauville Film Festival.
In December 2014 at Marrakesh Film Festival she was a member of the Cinecole Jury headed by Abderrahmane Sissako.
In April 2015 she played a lead role in an episode of “Non uccidere”, the new serie by Fremantle Media for Rai Fiction directed by Giuseppe Gagliardi.

In September 2015 Elisa will host the opening and closing events of the 72nd Venice International Film Festival.

FILM DIRECTING
Whilst having the chance to be on sets and learning about cinema in the field, Elisa has felt the growing desire of expressing herself also in a more personal
way and has decided to direct her own documentary.
IMAGE OF A WOMAN is her directorial debut, yet to be released. She codirected it with Martina Gili and she is writing it with acclaimed screen writer
Nicholas Klein (Buena Vista Social Club, Million Dollar Hotel, The Square,…)
https://plus.google.

ELISA SEDNAOUI FOUNDATION
Inspired by the time she has spent in Egypt throughout her life, and particularly by recent work co-directing the documentary film, Elisa has decided to embark on a new journey by creating The Elisa Sednaoui Foundation.

This project, conceived as an interactive platform to promote the personal and educational development of young people in rural areas and thus with fewer
opportunities, aims to encourage creativity, tolerance and democratic values by endorsing extra-curricular, cultural activities and exchange.

In essence, the goal is to create a sustainable cultural center, which provides daily after school classes which focus on the arts and on culture in the broad sense: painting, photography, acting, music, crafts. The two more traditional education
aspects the Foundation will work on are foreign languages and literacy. This center will be run by locals. The hope is to then be able to replicate this model around the world. ESF believes the necessity to do this type of work is relevant in both the so
called “developed countries” and the “developing countries”, because for different historic, social, religious reasons many children, whether they are in “disadvantaged” situations or not, are in need of being exposed to the arts and having access to a
space where they express their feelings, be tolerant, be equal between genders and dream big.

One of the countries where ESF intends to start working before the end of 2015 is Italy.

MUSIC
Elisa worked with Chaim Avital on his album ‘ALIVE’ released in February 2011, on which she sang and wrote the lyrics of the song ‘Who Said What’.
She has recorded, along with many other French actresses, a song for the album by composer Thomas Roussel entitled ‘ELLESONPARIS’ for a charity project helping hospitalized children, released in October 2012.

Elisa’s official pages:
http://elisasednaoui.org
http://facebook.com/ElisaSednaoui
http://twitter.com/elisasednaoui
http://instagram.com/elisasednaoui