Ahmed Benaissa

Ahmed Benaissa

Born: March 2, 1944
Died: May 20, 2022
in Algiers, Algeria
Ahmed Benaïssa (in Arabic: أحمد بن عيسى), born March 2, 1944 in Algiers and died May 20, 2022 in Cannes, is a Franco-Algerian actor.

As a child, Ahmed Benaïssa was fascinated by the religious festivals of Nédroma where he spent his summer holidays and at the age of 9, in Mazouna, he played in front of another kid's 9.5mm camera for 1mn30! The magic of the show leads him to make his own cinema with cardboard. He joined his father in Paris who had retreated there after his release following independence activities in Algeria. In Oise, at the college boarding school, he became a designated projectionist. In 1960-61, he was in Lyon, aged 17, and frequented the local artistic scene at the Théâtre de la Cité. There he attended the Al Capone show, directed by Planchon. It's dazzling.

When Algeria gained independence in 1962, the Lyon consulate included him in an animation course for compatriots from Algeria, then returned to Algeria, to Sidi Bel Abbès, where he entered the conservatory municipal then led by Saïm El Hadj. In July 1964, on a family visit to Algiers, he convinced Bénaïssa Boudia and Mustapha Kateb to join a training course for conservatory graduates at the initiative of the TNA (Algerian National Theater). After six months of training, he was ranked first in each discipline. Its first distribution was under the leadership of Alloula in 1966/67 in Monnaies D’Or. It will be breathtaking there. The TNA sent him to an advanced training course in France, then he moved on to the International Theater Institute. In 1968, he was in the Perennetti and Jean Marie Serreau troupe touring across Europe. Bulimic, he will do café theater and cinema. In 1971, he returned to Algeria, and discovered a theater in decline, emptied of its substance and devoted to propaganda. He distanced himself after three years on stage, and headed towards cinema, then in full development in Algeria.

For ten years, he appeared on the big and small screens. In 1985, he returned to the theater, then in a context of "text crisis" like the country at that time. He became a director, first of a children's theater with a superb Kalila or Dimna. In 1996, he directed the Sidi Bel Abbès Theater, then in a lethargic situation since Kateb Yacine was no longer there. He injects new blood with talented young local artists: Abbar Azzedine, Yahia Benamar, Niddal el Mellouhi and others. He will return to TNA. His most beautiful creation was El Maghara El Mounfajira in 2007 based on La Grotte Éclatée by Yamina Méchakra adapted by Haïder Benhassine. Over two decades, he put on shows where he trained comedians in the acting profession. In the cinema, in France and in Europe, we continue to call on Ahmed for his "mouth", his precision and his talent.

On May 20, 2022 at 4:30 a.m., Ahmed Benaïssa died at the age of 78, in full promotion of the film Goutte d'or at the 2022 Cannes festival, of a pulmonary embolism in his sleep in a hospital in Cannes where he had been evacuated after feeling unwell. He is buried in the El-Alia cemetery in Algiers.

Movies for Ahmed Benaissa...

Habib
Title: Habib
Character: Père de Habib
Released: April 19, 2023
Type: Movie
The story of a young Belgian actor of Moroccan origin who agrees to play the role of Saint-François-d'Assise to put an end to the roles of nice Arabs that are stuck on his forehead in often mediocre films. Getting into the historical figure will represent a real challenge for him; when his father, settled in Morocco, suddenly returns to Brussels with a new wife, and the beginnings of Alzheimer's, he finds himself having to juggle between the expectations of his colleagues and his family.
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Sons of Ramses
Title: Sons of Ramses
Character: Younes
Released: March 1, 2023
Type: Movie
Thirty-four year old Ramsès has established himself as a clairvoyant in La Goutte d’Or, Paris. A shrewd manipulator and something of a poet, he built a sound business consoling people. Elusive and dangerous youths, freshly arrived from the streets of Tangier, disrupt his business and the whole neighbourhood. Until the day Ramses has an actual vision.
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Papicha
Title: Papicha
Character: Hafid
Released: October 9, 2019
Type: Movie
Nedjma, an 18-year-old student passionate about fashion design refuses to let the tragic events of the Algerian Civil War keep her from experiencing a normal life. As the social climate becomes more conservative, she rejects the new bans set by the radicals and decides to put on a fashion show.
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Close Enemies
Title: Close Enemies
Character: Raji, "godfather" of the estate
Released: October 3, 2018
Type: Movie
Driss and Manuel both grew up on the same council estate. An estate where the sense of belonging to your patch is much stronger than the sense of belonging to a country, a nation or a culture... Manuel has assimilated this belonging, and he has even benefited from it and built his life on it. Driss, meanwhile, has shunned it. They will both have to face up to the consequences of their decisions – because they will each have a price to pay…
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Ismael's Ghosts
Title: Ismael's Ghosts
Character: Farias
Released: May 17, 2017
Type: Movie
Just as the disheveled and alcoholic filmmaker Ismaël embarks on a difficult new film project, his life is sent into a tailspin. His wife Carlotta, presumed dead for 20 years, come crashing back into his life creating chaos in his work and his current romantic relationship with the starry-eyed astronomer Sylvia.
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My Revolution
Title: My Revolution
Character: Rida
Released: August 3, 2016
Type: Movie
The Arab Spring in Paris: Head over heels in love, Marwann, aged 14, hopes to win over Sygrid by cleverly re-inventing himself as a revolutionary. Questions of identity arise in this romantic tale of first love
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Gates of the Sun
Title: Gates of the Sun
Character: Mohamed
Released: March 18, 2015
Type: Movie
An Algerian secret agent has to destroy an undercover paramilitary organization that plans to strike against the country and its people.
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Profumi d'Algeri
Title: Profumi d'Algeri
Released: January 1, 2015
Type: Movie
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Krim Belkacem
Title: Krim Belkacem
Released: November 1, 2014
Type: Movie
This film retraces the combat journey of Krim Belkacem, one of the leading figures of the Algerian War. When he left the Dellys barracks in October 1945, the day after the Second World War, Krim Belkacem was 23 years old. He is a man revolted by the May massacres in Sétif, Guelma, Kherrata and several other localities in the ravaged country. But it is also and above all a young Algerian who questions the future of Algeria. On March 21, 1947, Krim at the age of 25, he dug up his "Sten" submachine gun, he took action against the boss of his douar who was none other than his cousin. He goes into hiding with six companions. He meshes this entire part of Algeria with a dense and dense network with the sole objective of taking action which will lead to the outbreak of the armed struggle on November 1, 1954.
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Sotto Voce
Title: Sotto Voce
Released: June 4, 2013
Type: Movie
During the Algerian war, the road to Beni Boussaid on the Morocco-Algeria border is obstructed by the Morice line, a 430-mile long belt that is electrified and heavily mined. Moussa, a Moroccan friend of the revolution, helps refugees across the mountains. However, he must go through Beni Boussaid when he finds out that the path he usually takes is no longer safe. Hans, a Communist militant of the GDR, loses a leg on the way, while trying to remove a mine from a passageway. Normally, the wounded and sick are put to rest, but Hans is not a Muslim and cannot be a martyr.
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Outside the Law
Title: Outside the Law
Character: Le père
Released: September 21, 2010
Type: Movie
After losing their family home in Algeria in the 1920s, three brothers and their mother are scattered across the globe. Messaoud joins the French army fighting in Indochina; Abdelkader becomes a leader of the Algerian independence movement in France and Saïd moves to Paris to make his fortune in the shady clubs and boxing halls of Pigalle.
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Mostefa Ben Boulaïd
Title: Mostefa Ben Boulaïd
Released: December 1, 2008
Type: Movie
The film revolves around the life of the martyr Mustapha Ben Bouleid (1917-1956), who was a member of the Algerian National Movement, who worked with his comrades to explain the idea of the armed revolution in which he led in Aures region in 1954. The film depicts how Ben Bouleid traveled to a number of Arab countries Disguised to bring arms to Algeria for the revolution and how the French colonial forces arrested him in the Tunisian-Libyan border, and from there to Algeria to be sentenced to death.
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Inland
Title: Inland
Character: Lakhdar
Released: August 27, 2008
Type: Movie
Algerian filmmaker Tariq Teguia wrote and directed this impressionistic look at a man whose life takes an unexpected turn far away from home. Malek (Abdelkader Affak) is a surveyor from Algeria who is semi-retired, but at the urging of a friend he takes an assignment in Oran. The region in question was the site of frequent battles during Oran's civil war, and an earlier survey that would make it possible to bring electrical utilities to the area was cut short by the fighting. While the zone is still unstable, Malek sets out to complete charting the area, and finds the locals regard him with suspicion and hostility. However, not everyone is disrespectful, and he discovers a young woman (Ines Rose Djakou) who is attracted to him, which leads him to consider abandoning his old life to run away with her. Inland was an official selection at the 2008 Venice Film Festival.
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Arabian Nights
Title: Arabian Nights
Character: Sheperd
Released: November 16, 2007
Type: Movie
Georges's life is turned upside-down when he meets Yamina and decides to help her. While she seems to be persecuted and living in hiding, Georges's reality is rooted in a daily routine without any surprises. Yamina's stories fascinate him: her happy childhood under the rhythm of a song, the massacres in the 1990s in the Great South, as well as her difficulties in Algeria and then in France. Georges spends more and more time with Yamina and is totally disorientated the day she disappears without a word. As his search for her unfolds, Georges realizes that he knows nothing about her and that every person he meets who knew Yamina seems to have a different version of the young woman's life. Convinced that he must go to Algiers to save her, Georges abandons everything and sets out on a journey without any concrete destination. His quest finally leads him to an oasis in the Sahara, a desert that spreads as widely as this love story between Bonnevoie and Tabelbala.
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Morituri
Title: Morituri
Character: Commissaire Dine
Released: April 25, 2007
Type: Movie
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Rome Rather Than You
Title: Rome Rather Than You
Character: Policeman
Released: September 4, 2006
Type: Movie
"For more than ten years, Algeria has been living a slow war, a war without a front line but having caused more than 100,000 deaths. It is this desert that Zina and Kamel – two young Algerians sometimes hallucinated and joyful, sometimes dejected and serene – will want to travel one last time before leaving it for elsewhere. Road Movie on the territories of a city, Algiers whose construction sites are in decline. Roma wa la n'touma will show that fleeing abroad is not is not a refusal of combat, but an obscure struggle against assignment. Tariq Teguia
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Rumeur, etc.
Title: Rumeur, etc.
Released: January 1, 2003
Type: Movie
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The Female Demon
Title: The Female Demon
Released: January 2, 1994
Type: Movie
Directed by Hafsa Zinai Koudil.
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Le Clandestin
Title: Le Clandestin
Character: The Sheriff
Released: January 1, 1989
Type: Movie
Nine people with Abdullah Le Clandestin (Illegal Taxi), in one car, on the way to Algiers.
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The Epic of Cheikh Bouamama
Title: The Epic of Cheikh Bouamama
Released: January 7, 1985
Type: Movie
The story of the film revolves around the epic of Sheikh Bouamama, a leader of the national resistance in Algeria during the French colonial era. The events are taking place in southwestern Algeria. The film also tells about different stages of the resistance, especially about one of the uprisings of the Algerian people, namely "the battle of the sons of Sidi Sheikh Bouamama", in which French General Leuti was appointed to try to suppress and end this resistance.
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سقف و عائلة
Title: سقف و عائلة
Released: February 7, 1982
Type: Movie
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Kahla wa Bayda
Title: Kahla wa Bayda
Character: Rago
Released: January 1, 1980
Type: Movie
Rabie is a kid from Sétif in 1980, trying to collect money to buy a wheelchair for his paralyzid sister Sassia, so she can get out of the house.
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Leila and the Others
Title: Leila and the Others
Released: January 2, 1977
Type: Movie
The story of Algerian women trying to live in 1970s Algeria where the society is between conservative values and progressive modern Algeria.
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أطفال نوفمبر
Title: أطفال نوفمبر
Released: January 2, 1975
Type: Movie
In the streets of the Casbah of Algiers, an FLN fighter pursued by the colonial police hands over confidential documents to Mourad, an Algerian child shouting newspapers who must at all costs pass them on to the resistance. But the police are on their trail and will do anything to get them back.
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Étoile aux dents ou Poulou le magnifique
Title: Étoile aux dents ou Poulou le magnifique
Character: Jibé
Released: January 1, 1971
Type: Movie
In the 70s, in the Goutte d'or district, three friends of Algerian origin: Poulou, a failed boxer, Amar, the clumsiest of thieves, and Jibé, a public writer for illiterate compatriots whose lives he knows in detail. As he betrays none of their secrets, he enjoys great prestige in the bistros where he works. The three of them lead a casual life, raising money by illicit means. It's only when Poulou and Amar leave that Jibé understands his isolation and marginalization. The images as well as the sounds help to reinforce the feeling that Paris is a city where he is both at home and a terrible stranger.
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La Tragédie du Roi Christophe
Title: La Tragédie du Roi Christophe
Character: Juan de Dios-Martial Besse
Released: January 1, 1965
Type: Movie