Biography

Malek Bensmaïl (in Arabic: مالك بن اسماعيل), born in 1966 in Constantine, Algeria, is an Algerian director and screenwriter. In the 1980s, in Algeria, he made essay films in super 8. After studying cinema in Paris followed by an internship in the Lenfilm studios in Saint Petersburg, he devoted his filmography to documentaries, entirely committed to Algeria. Through his films of reality, he draws the contours of a complex humanity: democracy, modernity-tradition, language, identity, society. In 1996, he released Territoire(s), a documentary essay on archaic violence in the Arab world and post-modern violence in the West, the film won the Loupbar, the prize for best documentary discovery at the Festival du nouveau cinéma in Montreal and the Television prize at Avança/Porto.