
Houda Benyamina
Directing
Biography
Houda Benyamina (born 30 November 1980) is a French-Moroccan director and screenwriter. She was born in Viry-Châtillon, France, to a Moroccan family. Her younger sister Oulaya Amamra is an actress. Benyamina's debut feature film Divines was critically acclaimed. It was an official selection of the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival and received the Cannes Film Festival Camera d'Or. Among other accolades were three César Awards (including Best First Feature Film) and four other nominations, a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, a Munich Film Festival CineVision Award, and two Lumières trophies.
Known For

The owner of a Paris jazz club gets tangled up with dangerous criminals as he fights to protect his business, his band and his teenage daughter.
The Eddy

A complex thriller revolving around three characters, each with troubling pasts clouding their intersecting motives: Emma is a young woman who once loved a dangerous killer, John is a former serial predator desperate for redemption, and a grieving mother Mary who is obsessed with finding her missing daughter.
Tell Me Your Secrets

In a ghetto where religion and drug trafficking rub shoulders, Dounia has a lust for power and success. Supported by Maimouna, her best friend, she decides to follow in the footsteps of Rebecca, a respected dealer. But her encounter with Djigui, a young, disturbingly sensual dancer, throws her off course.
Divines

France, 1625. Women! They’re women! With fake beards, chest binders and pants underneath their outfits, they are indeed women. Sara, a young girl on the run, unmasks the true nature of the three musketeers, protectors of the Queen of France. She decides to join these powerful women and their dangerous idea: dress as men to live free, even at the risk of their very own lives.
All for One

In the French music world, the beginning of the 2000s was marked by the arrival of a young rapper, Diam's. Over the course of three albums, she has become a phenomenon in France, as well as in many countries around the world. Diam's has won some of the most prestigious awards in French music, graced the covers of countless magazines, and sold millions of records. However, in 2010, at the height of her fame, Diam's made a life choice that shocked the French: she converted to Islam. How did a tortured and suicidal artist find her way to peace? For the first time Diam's, known to her family as Mélanie, tells us the real story.
Salam

Gérard Courant's "Filmed Diary" of December 14, 2011, produced in Dubai (United Arab Emirates). Between December 7 and 15, 2011, Gérard Courant was invited by the Dubai International Film Festival, in the United Arab Emirates. It was an opportunity for him to film many "Cinematons" of personalities from the Arab world and to continue his "Film Notebooks" from which he brought back 7 episodes.
Dubai Winter Diary VI: Light and Reflections

Four first short films by young filmmakers. An initiative by director Houda Benyamina, produced by her association "1000 visages" (1000 faces).
1000 Faces

The Road to Paradise follows Leila, a mother of two living illegally in France, trying to raise her kids while failing to connect with her husband who has crossed the border to England.