La directora

Dominique Abel

At age of eight years old, Dominique Abel begin to learn classic and modern dance in the Provence's Aix Academy; At the age of ten he was tightrope walker and in her thirteen will study theatre in the Aix conservatory. After, she enters in the theatrical company "Le Contrejour" where it will interpret successively during three years J. Giraudoux's "Ondina", in the paper of Ondina, Moliere's "Georges Dandin", and J. Marivaux's "L'école des femmes", in the principal roles.

She was residing a year in Istanbul at age of seventeen, studying the classic and eastern dance. When she return to Paris, participates in a training course of the "Théâtre du soleil" (Ariane nouchkine) and after she is registered in the "Cours Simon", prestigious Parisian theatre school, where continues the classes of Madame Constant. At the same time, she studies jazz-dance in "Paris center".

An Antonio Gades' spectacle and a recording with Camaron constitute her first encounter with the flamenco; encounter that shocked with a great impact her life, leaving anything to approach that world art. She leaves Paris to enter, with the advice of Gades, in the flamenco dance academy "Amor de Dios" in Madrid. During five years, studies under the guidance of the greatest flamenco dancers: Ciro, Maria Magdalena, The Tati, Güito and Manolete. She participate in some spectacles in Madrid, Bologna (Festival Art Room) and Paris. In 1992, she is the dancer of the videoclip "Loco me tiene esa gitana" of the Spanish new flamenco group Ketama.

She began also an actress and model career. In fashion and advertising poses for magazines such as "Vogue", "Marie-Claire", "Donna", "Vanity", "The Face", etc. She works in Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Milan, London, Munich, Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York etc. Since now, she beings a close artistic collaboration (books, expositions, movies, videoclips - Maxime Le forestier, Paul Young etc.-) with the photographers and/or directors Javier Vallhonrat, Paolo Roversi, Enki Bilal, the Douglas Brothers, Jean-loup Sieff, Keiichi Tahara, Klaus Wickrat, Uwe Omer, Aldo Fallai and Mark Arbeit between others. She is elected by four photographers for the world exposition mondial of the SEITA "Gitanes" and also the exclusive model of Javier Vallhonrat for his exposition "The Possessed Space", work accomplished throughout several years, exposed in the Paris modern art museum, in the London Hamilton's gallery, in the Juana Mordo gallery of Madrid, in Tokyo etc... The book " The Possessed Space" is published by Gina Kehayoff publications (Munich).

Actress in the Spanish feature films "The Russian" (M. Camus), "Barrocco" (Paul Leduc), "The young Picasso" (J.A. Bardem) - in the role of Germaine Gargallo, Picasso's lover; in the French feature films "A coeur qui bat" (F. Dupeyron), "Mechanical Célestes" (F. towers), in the french series "Riviera" and "Nestor Burma". She is the protagonist role of one chapter in the American series "Net Shoes Diary" with Christopher Atkins directed by Rafi Eisenman (USA) she is also protagonist of the feature film "Hazal" directed by Salem Hiner, shooted in Kurdistan.

Works during 6 months as presenting of television for the French television channel SEPT (art).

Simone Bergman makes for her a portrait of dancer and model for the television magazine of the Nord Deutscher Rundfunk (German Television).

Collaborates as dancer during four months in a Karine Saporta's spectacle world circus.

At the same time to her dancer, actress and model works, she begins to write two scripts for feature films "The crime Happiness" and "Salomé Flamenca" with the collaboration of Santiago Amigorena and Jean-François Goyet. The movie "Salomé Flamenca" whose rights have been acquired by the French production company Ideale Audience, has received the support of the "European Script Fund".

She has written with Claude Santiago "South Express ", a musical documentary on the flamenco youths for television channels FR3 and ART.

In 1997 she publishes her first book "Caméléone" -interior and acute reports of a life model- with the publishing house Robert Laffont.

In 1998 make her first film as director, "Agujetas, Cantaor" a middle-length documental film of 58' shooted in Andalusia (Spain) for the ART Channel about the gipsy singer Agujetas. Cinematography by Jean-Yves Escoffier. Produced by Ideal Audience and already it bought by several international televisions. The movie obtains the great award from the Praga International Film Festival "Golden Prague 1999", the great video award from the Charles Cros Academy 1999, the Golden Spire award in the international San Francisco Cinema Festival 2000 and the better musical movie award in the Mediawave Festival in Hungay 2000 and a huge international route supported by an record and video edition (Naïve/Auvidis).

The film "Agujetas, Cantaor" has been released in the Paris cinema "L'entrepôt" (France) in 1999 and also in the Grenoble Film festival. In Spain the film inaugurated the autumn festival in Central Theatre of Seville (Spain).

In 1999 the book "Camaleona" is published in Spanish by publishing House Planeta.