Roschdy Zem

Roschdy Zem first graced the big screen in 1991 in André Téchiné’s I Don’t Kiss. Four years lat­er, he land­ed one of the leads in Xavier Beau­vois’ Don’t For­get You’re Going to Die, which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. He went on to have an eclec­tic career, mov­ing between auteur films, pop­u­lar come­dies, psy­cho­log­i­cal dra­mas and crime thrillers. In 2006, he and the ensem­ble cast of Days of Glo­ry received the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. That same year, he first stepped behind the cam­era with Bad Faith, in which he co-starred with Cécile de France. He sub­se­quent­ly direct­ed Omar Killed Me (2011), inspired by the case of Omar Rad­dad, Body­builder (2014), Choco­lat (2016), Per­sona non gra­ta (2019) and Our Ties (2022), which pre­miered at the Venice Film Fes­ti­val. Along­side his film­mak­ing, his act­ing career has led him to repeat­ed col­lab­o­ra­tions with such direc­tors as Pierre Jolivet, Xavier Beau­vois and Rachid Bouchareb, and to work with Anne Fontaine, Fred Cavayé and Pas­cale Fer­ran. In 2020, his per­for­mance in Arnaud Desplechin’s Oh Mer­cy! earned him a Best Actor César Award. He went on to star in Stéphane Demoustier’s The Girl with a Bracelet, Thier­ry de Peretti’s Under­cov­er, Rebec­ca Zlotowski’s Oth­er People’s Chil­dren and Louis Garrel’s The Inno­cent, a role which earned him a 2023 César nom­i­na­tion for Best Sup­port­ing Actor. In addi­tion, he has worked with Alix Dela­porte, Bruno Poda­ly­dès, Vin­cent Perez, Mar­jane Satrapi and Flo­rent-Emilio Siri. A famil­iar pres­ence on stage, Roschdy Zem played oppo­site Laeti­tia Cas­ta in A Spe­cial Day, direct­ed by Lilo Baur, for which he received a Molière Award nom­i­na­tion. In 2025, he appeared in Koya Kamura’s Win­ter in Sok­cho, Mar­tin Bourboulon’s 13 Days, 13 Nights and Diane Kurys’ Moi qui t’aimais. This year, he played a famous crim­i­nol­o­gist in Leonar­do Di Costanzo’s Elisa, pre­sent­ed at the Venice Film Fes­ti­val, and will soon be seen in Chris­tine Paillard’s Bil­lie Melody.