Born in 1965, Raphaël Girardot graduated with a degree in cinema from Paris 8 university after studying philosophy for two years. The teachings and ideas of Jean-Henri Roger, Renaud Victor, Serge Le Péron, Jean Narboni, Philippe Arnaud, Jean Paul Fargier and Simon Luciani have left an indelible mark on him, and continue to do so today in the work he tries to pass on. The University of Saint-Denis was also the place where he met students who meant a great deal to him, such as Alain Raoust, Pauline Dairou, Antonie Bergmaier, Stephane Rizzi and Zaida Ghorab.

After working for the Cahiers du Cinéma, Raphaël Girardot started working as an assistant director, and editor, whilst developing his own projects and directing three short films.

In 1996, he trained at the Ateliers Varan directing course, mostly as a sound editor. This allowed him to collaborate with tutors Jean Lefaux, Patrick Genet, André Van In and Leonardo Di Costanzo as instructors and to work alongside peers Marie Pierre Bretas, Laurent Salters and Olivier Pousset. He co-directed his first feature film with the first two and produced the films of the third. Raphaël Girardot went on to work with Matthieu Delaborde at Iskra, Vincent Gaullier at Archimède and Mariana Otero at Créadoc. To this day, Raphaël Girardot divides his time between editing fiction and documentaries (mostly in sound editing), teaching filmmaking in schools and universities. His recent film Saigneurs screened at the Cinéma du Réel, in 2017 and his last film Que m’est il permis d’espérer – en transit co-directed with Vincent Gaullier received the 2021 documentary prize at the Social film Festival in Aubervilliers.