Mikhail Chiaureli was born on February 6, 1894. After attending a vocational school, he entered a school of sculpture and painting in Tbilisi in 1916. He continued his studies of sculpture in Germany from 1922 to 1924. From 1924 to 1926 he was a sculptor in Tbilisi. From 1926 he worked as an actor at the Red Theatre in Tbilisi. In 1926 he organized and directed the Georgian Theatre of Musical Comedy.
From 1928 he worked as a director in Tbilisi from 1946 to 1955 at Mosfilm and from 1955 to 1957 at the Sverdlovsk studio. He taught at the school for actors of the Tbilisi film studio and from 1950 to 1960 at VGIK.
He acted in films, directed a series of fiction films for some of which he received awards abroad: Venice in 1946, Karlovy Vary in 1950 and 1952. In the 60s he only made animated films.
