
Malik Zidi
Acting
Biography
Malik Zidi was born in Châtenay-Malabry to a Kabyle Algerian father and a Breton mother. He spent his formative years in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, a suburb of Paris. Zidi abandoned his conventional studies early to concentrate on a career in comedy. Following courses at the Théâtre Véronique Nordey, and the Théâtre de Proposition in Paris, he briefly studied acrobatics and mime at the Théâtre de la Piscine and cinema at the Studio Pygmalion. Zidi made his first film appearance in the 1998 Sébastien Lifshitz-directed Les Corps ouverts. In 2000, Zidi was chosen by director François Ozon to appear as the troubled, lovelorn, bisexual youth Franz in the Teddy Award-winning film Water Drops on Burning Rocks (French:Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes). The film was based on the play Tropfen auf heisse Steine by German film director and screenwriter Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The film is a four-part comedy-drama shot entirely on one set and featuring only four actors: Zidi, Bernard Giraudeau, Ludivine Sagnier and American actress Anna Levine. Zidi's role in Water Drops on Burning Rocks garnered him his first of four César Award nominations. Malik Zidi followed up with roles in the 2002 Antoine Santana-directed Un moment de bonheur (English: One Moment of Happiness) opposite Isild Le Besco, earning his second César Award nomination for Most Promising Actor. In 2004, he appeared in the André Téchiné-directed romantic drama Les Temps qui changent (English release title: Changing Times) as Sami, the bisexual son of Cécile (portrayed by Catherine Deneuve), who visits his parents in Tangiers so that he may visit his Moroccan boyfriend. The film also starred actor Gérard Depardieu and was nominated for a Satellite Award. Zidi received his third César Award nomination. In 2006, Zidi appeared in the Emmanuel Bourdieu-drama Les Amitiés maléfiques (English release title: Poison Friends). The film was showcased at the Cannes Film Festival and Bourdieu received the Critics Week Grand Prize and the Grand Golden Rail. The film also won the SACD Screenwriting Award and Zidi was once again nominated for a César Award, winning the Award for Most Promising Actor 2007. In addition to film, Zidi has appeared in numerous television roles. In 2020, Zidi penned his first novel L'ombre du soir, which was published by Éditions Anne Carrière.
Known For

A woman wakes in a cryogenic chamber with no recollection of how she got there, and must find a way out before running out of air.
Oxygen

A sequence of seven episodes detailing the French monarchy.
The Accursed Kings

A school excursion to Strasbourg Cathedral turns into a tragedy when a teacher is murdered in the cathedral square and nine children disappear.
Disturbing Disappearances

The tragic story of the many lives of Father Dinis, his dark origins and his pious works, and the different fates of all those who, trapped in a sinister web of love, hate and crime, cross paths with him through years of adventure and misfortune in the convulsed Europe of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. (A longer television version of the film of the same name, released in 2010.)
Mysteries of Lisbon

In 1970s Germany, Léopold, a 50-year-old businessman, picks up and seduces 20-year-old Franz, who swiftly moves into his apartment. The dynamic between them intensifies with the sudden arrival of their ex-girlfriends.
Water Drops on Burning Rocks

Michelle is enjoying a peaceful retirement in a Burgundy village, close to her longtime friend Marie-Claude. When her Parisian daughter Valérie drops off her son Lucas to spend school vacation with his grandma, Michelle, stressed out by her daughter, serves her toxic mushrooms for lunch. Valérie quickly recovers, but forbids her mother from seeing her grandson anymore. Feeling lonely and guilty, Michelle falls into a depression... until Marie-Claude's son gets out of prison.
When Fall Is Coming

Six people struggling with their relationship, or lack thereof, cross paths with their respective exes — and discover they might still harbor feelings for each other.
Ex

A mother, herself retired from the police, embarks on an underground exploration of Paris to find her daughter, a missing investigator on a mission.
Nox
No description available.
Le Rouge et le Noir

When the disappearance of children and bloody murders multiply in a small mountain village, an old legend shrouded in sulphur reappears... Commander Guardiano and Captain of the Gendarmerie De Rolan are forced to join forces to uncover the truth.
The Soul Eater

No description available.
Enquête parallèle

Between 1905 and 1918, the opposing destinies of two brothers from a large Catholic bourgeois family.
Les Thibault

Nathalie is being stalked. By an interesting, intelligent young woman called Anaïs, who makes quite an impression on Nathalie, whose real name is Célimène and who happens to be a writer experiencing a crisis.
Pardon My French

The most turbulent five years in the life of a genius woman: Between 1905, where Maria Skłodowska-Curie comes with Pierre Curie to Stockholm to be awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the radioactivity, and 1911, where she receives her second Nobel Prize, after challenging France's male-dominated academic establishment both as a scientist and a woman.
Marie Curie

In a small Breton town, by the water, in a close-knit community where everyone knows each other, Gloria, a lawyer and mother of three on maternity leave, sees her daily life shattered when her husband disappears from overnight, without explanation.
Gloria

An aging photographer's obsession with an early form of photography draws his assistant and daughter into a work of mystery.
Daguerrotype

In 1891, the French painter Paul Gauguin leaves Paris and travels to Tahiti to renew his art as a free man, far from the European artistic conventionalism. On his journey of discovery, he faces solitude and disease, but he also knows the beauty of wild nature and the love of Tehura, a young native girl who becomes his wife and model.
Gauguin: Voyage to Tahiti

The last three days in the life of Elizabeth of Austria before her assassination.
Sissi, the Rebellious Empress

The story of a woman that remained distracted for a long time from her life, from the passions that made her feel alive. The importance of true love is compared with the material value of diamonds. Only one truly lasts forever. She's got to find the thing that values most for her, the thing that gives psychical stability and real happiness again to her life.
Place Vendôme

A coming-of-age story set in France in the years leading up to World War I. Two teenage boys experience love, loss, anguish and betrayal in a rural setting of great beauty.