Pavel Grigoryevich Chukhray was born on October 14, 1946 into the family of the well-known film director Grigory Chukhray in the Bykovo settlement of the Moscow Region. In 1969 he became a certified specialist of the Cameramen Faculty of the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography.  As a student he took part in shooting of the feature film Hello, Children! directed by Mark Donskoy.  In 1971 he participated in creation of the film The House of Five Walls as a cameraman.  In 1974 Pavel ahead of schedule graduated from the Film Directors’ Faculty of the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography, where he studied under Igor Talkalin.

He made his debut as a film director with the movie Do Remember Sometimes.  Pavel Chukhray debuted as a screenwriter in 1980 with his film Who Will Pay for Good Luck, whereas his work People at the Ocean won prizes in several nominations at once.

On the wave of the general interest in the so-called youth issues Pavel Chukhray created one of his best films - Cage for Canaries based on A. Sergeyev's play Incident at the Train Station.

By request of the French television in 1992 Pavel Chukhray directed the movie Key, and three years later was engaged in shootings of commercials for RIKKbank.  In 1996 he won the Silver and Bronze Lions at the Cannes International Publicity Film Festival.

Pavel Chukhray is the People’s Artiste of Russia, a Companion of Honour, and a winner of prizes of various film festivals.

In 1997 the viewers saw Pavel Chukhray’s movie The Thief starring Vladimir Mashkov. Nobody was left indifferent by the movie The Driver for Vera (2004) both written and directed by Pavel. In 2000 the film director made the documentary Broken Silence about the Holocaust during World War II in the USSR area; it was meant for Steven Spielberg’s project that included five movies shot in various countries.

Today Pavel Grigoryevich Chukhray goes on working on his new films.