Biyouna
Acting
Biography
Biyouna (بيونة), whose real name was Baya Bouzar (باية بوزار), was an Algerian actress, singer, and dancer born on September 13, 1952, in Belcourt, a working-class neighborhood of Algiers, and died on November 25, 2025, at the Beni Messous Hospital in Algiers, at the age of 73, from lung cancer. A major figure in Maghrebi culture, she is remembered as a free-spirited, popular artist deeply attached to Algeria. Born into a family where music played a significant role, particularly through her sister, the singer Leïla El Djazaïria, Biyouna developed a passion for singing, dancing, and acting at a very young age. As a teenager, she first joined Fadela Dziria's troupe, where she sang in the choir and played percussion, before forming her own group with which she performed at weddings and popular festivals in Algiers. By seventeen, she was already performing in the capital's cabarets, before becoming a dancer at the famous Copacabana at nineteen, which brought her to the attention of the artistic community. Her acting career began in the early 1970s when director Mustapha Badie spotted her and gave her the role of Fatma in the television series La Grande Maison, adapted from the novel by Mohammed Dib. This first major role made her instantly popular with the Algerian public and opened the doors of television and film for her, where her fiery temperament, humor, and outspokenness became her trademark. She then distinguished herself by alternating between melodramas, comedies, and one-woman shows, establishing herself as a key figure on Algerian television. From the late 1990s onward, Biyouna's career took off in France, notably with the film *Le Harem de Madame Osmane*, followed by *La Voisine* and *Viva Laldjérie*, which brought her to the attention of a wider audience. In 2007, she captivated audiences in *Délice Paloma*, where she portrayed Madame Aldjéria, a charismatic mafia matriarch, a role often considered one of the highlights of her filmography. Her singular presence, her deep voice, and her ability to blend tragedy and comedy made her a sought-after actress for numerous directors on both sides of the Mediterranean. At the same time, Biyouna pursued a successful musical career, releasing the album Raid Zone in the early 2000s, followed by Une blonde Dans La Casbah, projects blending Algerian influences with contemporary Franco-Algerian arrangements. She also participated in musical productions such as Fellag's Casbah Opera and lent her voice to various projects. She also became a star of television series, notably with Nass Mlah City, broadcast during Ramadan, and the Tunisian series Nsibti Laaziza, where her colorful characters left a lasting impression on Maghrebi audiences. The last years of her life were overshadowed by illness, lung cancer, which she battled for several years and which was regularly discussed in the Algerian and French media. She passed away on November 25, 2025, in Algiers, at the Beni Messous hospital, after her health deteriorated due to respiratory complications. She leaves behind a career spanning more than half a century and immense popularity, a symbol of a free, audacious, funny, and moving female artist who navigated the changing times without ever abandoning her personality or her language, moving seamlessly between Algerian Darija, colloquial Arabic, and French.
Known For
On n'est pas couché was a French talk show broadcast on France 2 on Saturdays at 11 p.m., hosted by Laurent Ruquier assisted by various columnists.
On n'est pas couché
The program combines comedy, celebrity, musical guests, and human-interest stories.
Amanda
When a childhood friend from Miami gets killed after he comes to warn of encroaching drug gangs, Baaba moves to Miami and teams up with a local officer to bring down the criminals.
Belleville Cop
A comedy/drama set in a village and centered on a battle of the sexes, where women threaten to withhold sexual favours as long as the men refuse to install a water pipe.
The Source
In 1939 in eastern Algeria, Omar, a young boy of ten, lives with his family in a room in Dar Sbitar, a house shared by several families who overcome the trials they go through every day to ensure their subsistence. Her deceased father is Aïni, the mother, who bleeds herself from all four veins to keep her children and their grandmother alive. The families of Dar Sbitar share their intimacy and their daily life, this life animates the big house, which itself becomes a character in its own right. "El Harik" (The Fire), is an Algerian drama series in 10 episodes adapted from Mohamed Dib's trilogy "The Big House", "The Fire" and "The Loom".
L’Incendie (El Harik)
The series takes place in the popular Bab El Oued neighborhood in Algeria, a neighborhood where drug trafficking is widespread. Reda exploits children to distribute drugs, and his brother Allam trades in antiquities. Events unfold in an exciting manner full of surprises.
EDAMMA
No description available.
Le Grand Bazar
In 2008, Sami Benboudaoud discovered the hell of Neuilly-sur-Seine. Ten years later, now that everything is for the best for Sami who brilliantly completes his studies of political science, nothing will go for his cousin Charles of Chazelle.
Neuilly sa mère, sa mère !
Nass Mlah City is a 2002-2006 Algeria comedy TV series directed by Djafar Gacem and broadcast by ENTV. It first aired in Algeria on 6 November 2002 and has since produced well over 52 episodes.
Nass Mlah City
The simple humorous life of Hassouna a real estate agent living peacefully with his wife Hayet, where his story takes place between his house, his office and the thrift store of his friend Babboucha.
My Dear Mother-in-law
After a crazy and tumultuous night embellished with singular encounters, Michel's awakening is brutal and painful. Not only does he find himself accused of murder, but his wife cannot be found.
Holiday
The writer Louis Gardel remembers his youth in Algeria. In 1955, Louis is 15 years old and lives with his grandmother Zoé. Zoé is friend with president Steiger, leader of the French settlers but also with the old Arab Bouarab. One night looking at the Bay of Algiers, Louis is convinced that the world in which he has grown will disappear. The first events of the War of Independence have begun. The young boys and young girls have a good time at the seaside: swimming, dancing, flirting. But, little by little, the war becomes part of their daily life.
Bay of Algiers
Α tragi-comedy about 9 women of different ages and various backgrounds that gather in an Algerian hammam to talk about their lives.
I Still Hide to Smoke
In Algiers in 1993, while the civil war is starting, Mrs Osmane's tenants have to endure her bad temper. Her husband left her and the fear to lose her respectability haunt her. The former member of the Resistance during the Independence War persists in controlling the slightest moves of the households rather than struggle against her own frustrations. Learning her daughter is in love, the possibility of finding herself alone will push her to the limit: The symbolical Mrs Osmane "harem" is about to collapse.
The Harem of Madame Osmane
More than anything, 30-year-old Rose longs to be reunited with Mickaël, her estranged 11-year-old son who has been placed with a foster family and blames his mother for their long separation. When she discovers that Mickaël is crazy about wrestling, Rose thinks she's found a way to melt the ice: she'll put together a tag team with three girlfriends from the store where all four work as checkout girls...
Queens of the Ring
Three brothers are reunited on the occasion of the death of his mother. The three are in a difficult stage of their lives due to economic difficulties: Bernard is a failed actor, Didier pretends to be a professor of philosophy when, in fact, is selling sex toys and Pascal lives off a rich sexagenarian. Accompanied by Sara, the teenage daughter of Bernard, they live surprising encounters while new problems appear.
The Three Brothers: The Return
Amelle and Noom are two young thirties are total opposites and that fate will bring. Serious She manager at Starbucks, and dynamic IT dilettante, smart, and apprentice comic. Both victims disappointments in love, they swore that it does take longer. So how do when despite all these opposites attract? A game of seduction then sets up for our greatest happiness. But all is not so rosy, families, friends, colleagues get involved, wars are declared, quarrels explode. Caught between the roots of their education and the fire of their feelings, which side will they choose? The love he will triumph? One thing is sure, they will make us have a good loads of fun and excitement ...
Take-Away Romance
Djalil Boudaoud and Justine Lacroix are a surgeon and a television reporter who enter a romantic relationship despite the objections of their families to the cultural gap.
Bacon on the Side
No description available.
Aïcha : Vacances infernales
A few miles from Paris, on the other side of the northern ring road, stands a ghetto neighborhood with countless rows of dilapidated apartment buildings, their concrete crumbling and iron rusting. A multiracial community has long been rooted here, while most native French families have deserted the area. In tower 216 lives a "model" family of Algerian origin, the Bouamazzas. Our heroine, Aïcha, 25, the eldest daughter, is held up as an example by the whole community. But Aïcha can no longer bear the weight of the community: she wants to spread her wings, gain her independence, and finally cross the Rubicon.