Biographie
Isabelle Doval is a French screenwriter and director. Before venturing into storytelling and filmmaking, she was a professional musical theater dancer and singer, performing in productions such as "Cabaret" and "Kiss Me Kate." She transitioned to cinema by becoming an actress, notably spending two years at the Comédie-Française and appearing in various plays directed by Jérôme Savary and Alain Marcel.
Appearing under the name Isabelle Dinelli, Doval acted in several films, including "Le plus beau métier du monde" (1996), "Comme Une bête" and "Comme un poisson hors de l'eau" (1998), and "La Vérité si je mens 2" (2001). However, these small roles remained relatively low-profile as she focused on larger projects.
Preferring directing, she created her first short films in 1996, including "Déçues" (1999), which was part of an anti-drug awareness campaign. During this project, she met producers Luc Besson and Michel Propper, who gave her the chance to direct her first feature film. A year after writing the screenplay, she cast the well-known French actor José Garcia in the lead role of the comedy "Rire et châtiment" ("Laughter and Punishment"), which follows the tragicomic story of a man who makes people laugh until they die. Continuing her filmmaking journey, she directed her second feature film, "Un château en Espagne" (2008), which explores the friendship between two children. Five years later, she released her third film, "Fonzy," a French remake of the successful Quebec film "Starbuck," about a man who discovers he fathered 533 children. Once again, José Garcia starred in the leading role. In 2017, she co-directed the French TV series "Quadras," centered on a man facing a midlife crisis who leaves his wife for another woman. In 2019, "Quadras" was adapted by Top Kapinos for Fox TV as the remake "Lovestruck." In 2018, she directed her latest film, "Abdel et la comtesse," which depicts the encounter between a countess and a young man from the ghetto.
