Acting
Jan 15, 1932
Alger, Algérie
Mohamed Zinet
Acting
Biography
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 Finally, he is the author of an unpublished play entitled Tibelkachoutine (The Man With Twigs) in Berber, created in 1953, testifying to his great admiration for Charlie Chaplin and silent cinema.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.
Feature Films (14)
Madame Rosa lives in a sixth-floor walkup in the Pigalle; she's a retired prostitute, Jewish and an Auschwitz survivor, a foster mom to children of other prostitutes. Momo is the oldest and her favorite, an Algerian lad whom she raises as a Muslim. He asks about his parents; she answers evasively. As she ages and takes fewer children, Momo must do more for her; as money is tight, he tries to earn pennies on the street with a puppet. He's a beautiful man-child, and Madame Rosa makes him promise never to sell himself or become a pimp. A film editor, Nadine, befriends him, and his father appears as well. Madame Rosa reaches her last days in fear of hospitals, and Momo must act.
Madame Rosa
In the early 1970s, Lakhdar, an Algerian peasant, is forced to leave his desert land and his family for France, but immigration weighs on him and he dreams of returning. This day arrives, he walks in Paris, events decide otherwise.
Le Retour
Georges Lajoie is a Parisian café owner. As every summer, Georges, his wife Ginette and grown-up son Léon go on holiday to Loulou's campsite, where they meet up with the Schumacher family (whose father is a bailiff) and the Colin family (who sells bras in the markets). This year, their peace is slightly disturbed by the proximity of a construction site where foreign workers are employed. Xenophobic comments are made. One evening at the ball, a fight breaks out between Lajoie, Albert Schumacher and two algerian immigrant workers...
The Common Man
A construction worker on a construction site in the Paris suburbs, Mehdi takes the bus to return home after work. Wishing to get off while the vehicle is stationary in a traffic jam, the driver refuses: while restarting, the bus hits the car in front of it. The bus driver attacks Mehdi whom he holds responsible for the incident, claiming that it is forbidden to “talk to the stagehand”. Mehdi is implicated in court and his lawyer tries to draw attention to the living conditions of immigrant workers.
Le Bougnoul
Television & Series (3)
Tatort is a long-running German/Austrian/Swiss crime television series set in various parts of these countries. The show is broadcast on the channels of ARD in Germany, ORF in Austria and SF1 in Switzerland.
Scene of the Crime
Rachid, a North African immigrant worker in the Fayard company for several years, saved to bring his wife Leïla and their son Larbi. They arrive in France for the first time. Leïla full of hope came to join her husband in exile. But very quickly, it is the shock: the difficult working conditions, the hard daily life of her husband and the surrounding grayness marked by anti-Arab racism does not bode well.
