Mohamed Zinet
Mohamed Zinet (Arabic: محمد زينت) is an Algerian actor and director, born January 16, 1932 in the Casbah of Algiers in Algeria, and died April 10, 1995 in Bondy in France. Born in 1932 in Algiers, Mohamed Zinet developed a passion for theater at a very young age. He led an amateur troupe called El-Manar El-Djazairi (The Algerian Flambeau) and in 1947, in Paris, he presented an adaptation of Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Molière in the Wagram room. Officer of the National Liberation Army (ALN) during the war of independence, he was seriously injured during a mission, then transported to Tunis where the artistic troupe of the National Liberation Front (FLN) was created which constituted the core of the future Algerian National Theater. During his stay in Tunis, he played the role of Lakhdar in Le Cadavre Encerclé by Kateb Yacine, directed by Jean-Marie Serreau. After a first internship in 1959 at the Berliner Ensemble in the GDR, Mohammed Zinet did a second at the Kammerspiele in Munich in 1961. The following year, he stayed in Paris where he was hired by Jean-Marie Serreau for the Scandinavian tour of Les Bonnes de Jean Genet and Amédée or How to Get Rid of It by Eugène Ionesco. Returning to Algiers in 1964, he participated in the creation of the company Casbah Films with Yacef Saâdi and was an assistant on Les Mains Libres by Ennio Lorenzini (1964) and La Bataille d'Algiers by Gillo Pontecorvo (1966). He was also in demand as an actor in Monangambée by Sarah Maldoror (1968) and Les Trois Cousins as well as Les Ajoncs by René Vautier (1970). Finally, he is the author of an unpublished play entitled Tibelkachoutine (The Man With Twigs) in Berber, created in 1953, testifying to his great admiration for Charlie Chaplin and silent cinema. A play presented in Tunisia, which he planned to adapt for the cinema but the film will never see the light of day. Made in 1971, Tahya Ya Didou! is the only feature film by director Mohamed Zinet. In this film, he presents his vision of independent Algeria with realism and poetry by discovering the Casbah and white Algiers, pearl of the Mediterranean in a poetic dialogue told by his friend, the poet Himoud Brahimi. The result, an unclassifiable comedy, full of life and fantasy, freshness and poetry, which gradually became cult for film buffs, which was not initially to the taste of the sponsors of the municipality of Algiers who were expecting a documentary. tourism in the capital. Result, Tahya Ya Didou! never had a real release. The film, of which a film copy was eventually found, was restored and digitized in 2016. Subsequently, throughout the 1970s, Mohamed Zinet played among others in Le Bougnoul by Daniel Moosmann (1974), Dupont Lajoie by Yves Boisset (1974), La Vie Devant Soi by Moshe Mizrahi (1977), Robert et Robert by Claude Lelouch (1978), Le Coup De Sirocco by Alexandre Arcady (1979), etc. Mohamed Zinet died on April 10, 1995 in Bondy (Paris region), after several years of hospitalization, Mohamed Zinet is buried in the El-Kettar cemetery in Algiers.
The Common Man
as Le frère de SaïdGeorges Lajoie is a Parisian café owner. As every summer, Georges, his wife Ginette and grown-up...
Movie pageThe Under-Gifted
as Mustapha le terroristeThe story centers around a graduating class of "less-gifted" students in a private Versailles...
Movie pageMadame Rosa
as Kadir YoussefMadame Rosa lives in a sixth-floor walkup in the Pigalle; she's a retired prostitute, Jewish and...
Movie pageLe Bougnoul
as Mehdi Ben ChraïbiA construction worker on a construction site in the Paris suburbs, Mehdi takes the bus to return...
Movie pageChâteau Espérance
as MustaphaRachid, a North African immigrant worker in the Fayard company for several years, saved to bring...
Movie pageThe Kick of Sirocco
as Le porteurA shady Parisian tries to take advantage of a family of French-descended Algerians forced to...
Movie pageLes Avocats du Diable
as MechtirIn 1958 in Paris, during the Algerian War, a young trainee lawyer, Maître Chabrier, was assigned...
Movie pageLes Ajoncs
as uncreditedAn unemployed Algerian worker leaves Paris by hitchhiking. He soon found himself in Brittany...
Movie pageTahia Ya Didou !
as HassanOriginally commissioned by the city of Algiers to promote tourism, Mohamed Zinet’s Tahia ya...
Movie pageRobert et Robert
as Ali SalemRobert #1 is played by Charles Denner, while Robert #2 is played by Jacques Villeret. Beyond...
Movie pageLe Retour
as uncreditedIn the early 1970s, Lakhdar, an Algerian peasant, is forced to leave his desert land and his...
Movie pageMonangambeee
as uncreditedFilmmaker-griot coming from the theater, it was with a camera, while the war in Vietnam occupied...
Movie pageZinet, Algiers, Happiness
as Self (archive footage)Who remembers Mohamed Zinet? In the eyes of French spectators who reserve his face and his frail...
Movie pageAziza
as Si BéchirAround 1980, in Tunisia, Si Béchir, an old craftsman, sold his house and left the medina of...
Movie pageLes Trois Cousins
as uncreditedThe Three Cousins is a comedy-drama by René Vautier released in 1970 about the living...
Movie pageScene of the Crime
as MohammedTatort is a long-running German/Austrian/Swiss, crime television series set in various parts of...
TV Show pageLes Cinq Dernières Minutes
as MustaphaLes Cinq Dernieres Minutes is a crime based French television series
TV Show page