Haydée Samama Chikly Tamzali (23 August 1906 – 20 August 1998) was a Tunisian actress, writer, and filmmaker.

Early life

Haydée Chikly was born in 1906, the daughter of

Tunisian Jewish The history of the Jews in Tunisia extended nearly two thousand years and goes back to the Punic era. The Jewish community in Tunisia is no doubt older and grew up following successive waves of immigration and proselytism before its develo ...

filmmaker

Albert Samama Chikly Albert Samama Chikly (24 January 1872 – December 28, 1934), was a Tunisian filmmaker and photographer. Considered one of the earliest pillars in World Cinema, Albert was a photographer, filmmaker, technophile, adventurer, cyclist and the pione ...

. Her mother was Bianca Ferrero, an Italian-born woman from

Savoy Savoy (; frp, Savouè ; french: Savoie ) is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps. Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south. Savo ...

. Tamzali's paternal grandfather, David Samama, was a banker of the

Bey Bey ( ota, بك, beğ, script=Arab, tr, bey, az, bəy, tk, beg, uz, бек, kz, би/бек, tt-Cyrl, бәк, translit=bäk, cjs, пий/пек, sq, beu/bej, sh, beg, fa, بیگ, beyg/, tg, бек, ar, بك, bak, gr, μπέης) is ...

who established a banking institution that would later become the Bank of Tunisia.

Career

Haydée Chikly worked with her father from girlhood. He directed her in her first starring role in a short film, ''

Zohra Zohra (Arabic: زهرة, Persian: زهره) may refer to: People Given name * Zohra Al Fassiya (1905-1994), Moroccan singer and poet *Zohra Begum Kazi (1912–2007), Bangladeshi physician and activist *Zohra Bensalem (born 1990), Algerian volleyba ...

'' (1922), written by her, and considered the first

fiction film Narrative film, fictional film or fiction film is a motion picture that tells a fictional or fictionalized story, event or narrative. Commercial narrative films with running times of over an hour are often referred to as feature films, or feature ...

made in Tunisia. They followed this work with another silent drama in 1924, ''Ain el-Ghezal (The Girl from Carthage)'', also starring Haydée Chikly, in a story she wrote "to show how badly women were treated when they were just sold off with an arranged marriage into a man's world." The younger Chikly also took a turn at film editing and hand-coloring in her father's employ. Haydée Chikly also appeared in Rex Ingram's '' The Arab'' (1924), but her father did not permit her to relocate to Hollywood to pursue an acting career. In 1996, Haydée Tamzali appeared in the film ''

A Summer in La Goulette ''A Summer in La Goulette'' (french: Un été à La Goulette, ar, صيف حلق الوادي, ṣayf Ḥalq el-Wādī) is a 1996 film by Tunisian director Férid Boughedir. It is a narrative of how intercommunal relations deteriorated in cosmopo ...

'', by

Férid Boughedir Férid Boughedir (born 1944) is a Tunisian film director and screenwriter. Career Boughedir has directed five films since 1983. His film '' Caméra d'Afrique'' was screened at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. In 1996, his film ''Un été à La Gou ...

Private life

As an adult, Haydée Tamzali married, raised two children, lived in Algiers and Paris, and wrote a cookbook of North African cuisine, ''La Cuisine en Afrique du Nord''. In 1929, Haydée married the Algerian Khellil Tamzali and became Haydée Chikly Tamzali. She left Tunisia for Algeria where she continued to write. She was active in the civil society, becoming President of Social Works, Secretary of the Red Cross, and President of the League Against Cancer. She wrote many short stories and articles for the Tunisian national newspaper ''La Presse'', as well a book in 1992 composed of true stories about the past called ''Lost Images''.

Filmography

* ''Zohra'' (1922) * ''Aïn el Ghazal/La Fille de Carthage'' (1923) * ''The Arab'' (1924) * ''Un été à La Goulette'' (1996)

Works

*''Images retrouvées'', 1992 *''La cuisine en Afrique du Nord : 444 recettes tunisiennes, algériennes et marocaines dont 33 couscous'', 1999

References

External links

*
Profile of Haydée Chikly on Women Film Pioneers Project Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tamzali, Haydee 1906 births 1998 deaths Jewish Tunisian history Tunisian people of Jewish descent Converts to Islam from Judaism Tunisian Muslims Tunisian people of Italian descent Tunisian expatriates in Algeria Tunisian expatriates in France Tunisian screenwriters 20th-century screenwriters Women film pioneers