Catherine Belkhodja

Catherine Belkhodja (born 15 April 1955) is a French artist, actress and film director. Early life On 15 April 1955, Belkhodja was born in Paris, France, to an Algerian father and a French mother. She lived and studied in Algiers where she wrote her first short stories. She went on studying theatre, music and fine arts, took her first steps in the cinema and left for Paris to read architecture, philosophy, town planning and ethnology of the Maghreb. She graduated in philosophy and began earning her living as a teacher, then reading architecture, specialising in bioclimatics and working in the town planning department of the Paris Prefecture. She later took aesthetics with Olivier Revault d'Allones at the Sorbonne University, prior to leaving for Belgium to further her studies in solar architecture, then for Egypt to work with Hassan Fathy on earth architecture.