Faouzi Bensaïdi (; born 14 March 1967) is a Moroccan

film director A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...

, actor,

screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...

and artist. His film '' A Thousand Months'' was screened in the

Un Certain Regard (; 'A Certain Glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films with unusua ...

section at the

2003 Cannes Film Festival The 56th Cannes Film Festival took place from 14 to 25 May 2003. French opera and theatre director, filmmaker, actor and producer Patrice Chéreau was the President of the Jury for the main competition. Monica Bellucci hosted the opening and closi ...

. In 2007 and 2009 he has taken part in the

Arts in Marrakech Festival The Arts festival in Marrakech, now the Marrakech Biennale, first took place in 2005. It was set up by Vanessa Branson and Abel Damoussi with the help of curator Danny Moynihan and Liberatum creator Pablo Ganguli. There were 2 editions of Ai ...

showing and discussing his films and installations. In 2011, his film '' Death for Sale'' premiered at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

in September. The film was selected as the Moroccan entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the

85th Academy Awards The 85th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2012 and took place on February 24, 2013, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, beginning at 5:30 p ...

, but it did not make the final shortlist.

Influences

Bensaïdi participated in the 2022 edition of the ''

Sight & Sound ''Sight and Sound'' (formerly written ''Sight & Sound'') is a monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). Since 1952, it has conducted the well-known decennial ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time. ...

'' film polls, which are held every 10 years to commemorate the greatest films of all time and rank them in order. Directors and critics both give their 10 favorite films of all time for the poll; Bensaïdi picked ''

Citizen Kane ''Citizen Kane'' is a 1941 American Drama (film and television), drama film directed by, produced by and starring Orson Welles and co-written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz. It was Welles's List of directorial debuts, first feature film. ...

'' (1941), ''

8½ ''8½'' ( ) is a 1963 Italian avant-garde arthouse comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Federico Fellini. The metafictional narrative centers on famous Italian film director Guido Anselmi ( Marcello Mastroianni) who suffers from writer ...

'' (1963), ''

North by Northwest ''North by Northwest'' is a 1959 American spy thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason. The original screenplay written by Ernest Lehman was intended to be the basis for ...

'' (1959), '' Modern Times '' (1936), '' Ran'' (1985), ''

Playtime ''Playtime'' (stylized as ''PlayTime'' and also written as ''Play Time'') is a 1967 Satire (film and television), satirical comedy film directed and co-written by Jacques Tati. Tati also stars in the film, reprising the role of Monsieur Hulot ...

'' (1967), ''

Raging Bull ''Raging Bull'' is a 1980 American biographical sports drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty, Theresa Saldana, Frank Vincent and Nicholas Colasanto (in his final film role). The film ...

'' (1980), ''

The Godfather ''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American Epic film, epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling The Godfather (novel), 1969 novel. The film stars an ensemble cast inc ...

'' (1972), ''

Le Samouraï ''Le Samouraï'' (; ) is a 1967 neo-noir crime thriller film written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville and starring Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon, and Cathy Rosier. A Franco-Italian production, it depicts the intersecting pa ...

'' (1967), and ''

À bout de souffle ''Breathless'' () is a 1960 French New Wave crime drama film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. It stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as a wandering criminal named Michel, and Jean Seberg as his American girlfriend Patricia. The film was Godard's ...

'' (1960).

Selected filmography

* '' Mektoub'' - 1997 * '' A Thousand Months (Mille mois)'' - 2003 * '' WWW: What a Wonderful World'' - 2006 * '' Death for Sale'' - 2011 *''

Volubilis Volubilis (; ; ) is a partly excavated Berber-Roman city in Morocco, situated near the city of Meknes, that may have been the capital of the Kingdom of Mauretania, at least from the time of King Juba II. Before Volubilis, the capital of the kin ...

'' - 2017 *''Sofia'' - 2018 *''Deserts (Déserts)'' - 2023

References

External links

* 1967 births Living people Moroccan film directors Moroccan male film actors Moroccan screenwriters {{Morocco-film-director-stub