Born in Algiers, Merzak Allouache graduated from IDHEC film school in Paris in 1967. In 1976, he shot his first feature, Omar Gatlato, which screened in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar of the Cannes Festival. His second movie, Les Aventures d’un Héros (1977) was awarded the Golden Thanit at the Carthage Film Festival. Un amour à Paris won the Perspectives du Cinema Français Prize at the Cannes Festival.

After Bab-El-Oued City (1986), which won the International Critics’ Prize at Cannes and the Grand Prix Institut du Monde Arabe at the 2nd Festival of Arab Cinema in Paris, it became temporarily impossible for Merzak Allouache to return to Algeria. He then shot Salut Cousin, ‘as a breathing space, bringing the comedy out of the underlying drama,’ as he says, for he is deeply aware of ‘the incredible distance that separates brothers living on opposite sides of the Mediterranean’. Salut Cousin was shown at many international festivals and won, among other awards, the Arab Critics’ Prize at Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 1996. Chouchou, was released in 2003 and became a major commercial success. He is also the director of Bab El Web, a comedy screened at the Arab Film Festival in 2005.

Director of Harragas