Monia Chokri (born 27 June 1982) is a Canadian actress and filmmaker.
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Life and career
Born in Quebec City in 1982, Chokri began her acting career after she completed her studies at Conservatoire d'art dramatique de Montréal in 2005. Her mother is of Scottish descent, while her father is Tunisian with Berber roots.
In addition to having played in several theatre productions in Montreal, Chokri has received notable roles in films presented at the Cannes Film Festival directed by Québécois filmmakers who are better known outside of Canada, namely Denys Arcand and Xavier Dolan. In Heartbeats, she played Marie, a young woman who falls in love with the same man as her gay male best friend Francis, played by Dolan, who also directed. The quality of her acting has been noted by critics, notably in Les Inrockuptibles and Le Monde.
At the end of 2010, the readers of Les Inrockuptibles named Chokri #4 on their list of the top actresses of the year for her performance in Heartbeats.
Her debut as a director, the short film An Extraordinary Person (Quelqu'un d'extraordinaire), was released in 2013 and won the Prix Jutra for Best Live Action Short Film at the 16th Jutra Awards. Her feature debut, A Brother's Love (La femme de mon frère), premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.
Babysitter, in which she was both the director and an actress, was released in 2022. She received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Lead Performance in a Film at the 11th Canadian Screen Awards in 2023.
Filmography
Days of Darkness (L'Âge des ténèbres), 2007 – Aziza
Frédérique au centre, 2008 – Frédérique
Hier, demain, hier, 2009 – Maya
Heartbeats (Les Amours imaginaires), 2010 – Marie
Laurence Anyways, 2012 – Stéfanie Belair
Clémenceau, 2012 – Charlotte Beauséjour
Gare du Nord, 2013 – Joan
Nouvelle adresse, 2014–2015
All Yours (Je suis à toi), 2014
Endorphine, 2015
The Saver, 2015
Heal the Living, 2016
A Taste of Ink, 2017 – Julia
Ravenous (Les Affamés), 2017 – Tania
Emma Peeters, 2018 – Emma
A Brother's Love (La femme de mon frère), 2019 – director, screenwriter
We Are Gold (Nous sommes Gold), 2019 – Marianne
Before We Explode (Avant qu'on explose), 2019
Babysitter, 2022 – Nadia, also director
Falcon Lake, 2022 – Violette
The Nature of Love (Simple comme Sylvain), 2023 – director, screenwriter