Mounia Meddour

Mou­nia Med­dour stud­ied jour­nal­ism at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Alger before earn­ing a Master’s degree in infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion at Paris 8 Uni­ver­si­ty. In 2000, she joined the sum­mer direct­ing pro­gram at La Fémis in Paris and fol­lowed film pro­duc­tion train­ing at the Cen­tre Européen de For­ma­tion à la Pro­duc­tion de Films. She direct­ed sev­er­al doc­u­men­taries, includ­ing Tikj­da : la car­a­vane des sci­ences, Par­tic­ules élé­men­taires, La Cui­sine en héritage and Ciné­ma algérien un nou­veau souf­fle, which focused on young film­mak­ers of her age who went through the « black decade » in Alge­ria. Her short film Edwige (2011) was pre­sent­ed in numer­ous inter­na­tion­al film fes­ti­vals and won many prizes. With her first fea­ture film, Papicha, she earned the Sopadin Award for Best Screen­writ­ing and received a CNC writ­ing grant. The film was select­ed in the Un Cer­tain Regard sec­tion of the 2019 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val and won the 2020 César Award for Best First Film and for Most Promis­ing Actress for Lyna Khoudri. Mou­nia Med­dour is cur­rent­ly work­ing on her sec­ond fea­ture film, Houria, which she will start shoot­ing next year.