Sami Bouajila, “a Son” Of Tunisia, King Of The Caesar

The south of Tunisia is invited to the annual French cinema award. A son, a Franco-Tunisian co-production shot in the desert, won one of the most prestigious trophies of the ceremony, that of best actor, for Sami Bouajila. Shot in the governorate of Tataouine, in the south of the south of the country, not far from the Libyan border, this story of filiation is Mehdi Barsaoui’s first film. Presented at the Venice Film Festival 2019, in the “Horizon” section, the film won the prize for best actor. Eighteen months later, it is a Caesar that salutes the thirty-year career of Sami Bouajila, who started with The money, in 1991, a comedy by Philippe Galland in which he was the first role.

It will alternate between mainstream films and more personal projects. He was showing Silences of the palaces by Moufida Tlati, written by Nouri Bouzid, which achieved significant critical success at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival as well as a special mention from the Camera d’Or jury. He followed up with a rabid project by Karim Dridi, Bye-Bye, also noticed at the time.

With Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis

Olivier Doran entrusts him with one of the roles of the choral film Moving, public success. Bouajila then went to the United States to join the actor of Die Hard, Annette Bening and Denzel Washington in Curfew by Edward Zwick. There he interprets, three years before September 11, a terrorist infiltrated in New York. Like many actors whose parents were from the Maghreb, Sami Bouajila will come up against the caricature roles offered by Hollywood studios. Abdellatif Kechiche, originally from Tunis, hiring for Blame it on Voltaire. Success. Michel Blanc, Arnaud Desplechin will succeed this blockbuster which will make a long life on DVD, VOD, streaming. Rachid Bouchareb (Indigenous, Outlaw) will offer him two red carpet flights at the Cannes Film Festival as well as a collective interpretation prize, in 2006, shared with Jamel Debbouze and Roschdy Zem. The latter also presided over the César 2021 ceremony. A son is one of the densest roles that Sami Bouajiila has been able to interpret. The film won its young director a lot of praise. This morning, in this desert south of Tunisia, a border region rich in beauty and tragedies, we can boast of a Caesar by Bouajila interposed. The actor had already won the Cesar in the supporting role for Witnesses by André Téchiné. Téchiné who had turned Abdellatif Kechiche in Innocents in 1987. A circle has come full circle.


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