Yamina Benguigui

Yamina Benguigui
Yamina Benguigui in 2009
Born	Yamina Zora Belaïdi (1955-04-09) April 9, 1955 (age 61) Lille, France
Occupation	film director and politician

Yamina Benguigui (born in Lille on 9 April 1955) is a French film director and politician of Algerian descent. She is known for her films on gender issues in the North African (both Berbers and Arabs) immigrant community in France.

Benguigui's parents were Algerian and immigrated to France from Algeria in the early 1950s. She never discovered why her parents decided to leave Algeria, saying the subject was considered taboo. Born in Lille, Benguigui was the eldest daughter of six children and spent her childhood in northern France. Describing herself as a quiet child who grew up in the Islamic tradition, Benguigui was only 13 years old when she first decided to become a filmmaker.

Her father was a political leader in the Algerian National Movement, and was jailed in France for three years as a political prisoner (she has also stated that he was jailed on two separate occasions, and that her whole family was once under house arrest). Because he did not support her in her chosen profession, Benguigui broke off contact with him early on, only to reconnect with him in late 2001. After she left the family her mother divorced her father as well. Yamina Benguigui married a Jewish pied-noir and has two daughters.

Earning her baccalaureate and going on to study at film school, Benguigui then collaborated with French director Jean-Daniel Pollet. Later Benguigui founded "Bandit Productions" with director Rachid Bouchareb. In 1994 her documentary Femmes d'Islam was broadcast on France 2, but subsequently she decided that she would prefer to examine the immigrant experience in France rather than life in Algeria.

Her next documentary, Mémoires d'immigrés, l'héritage maghrébin, cost 50 million francs and was the result of 350 interviews conducted with immigrants across France. After a two-year period of preparation and another nine months of editing it was first shown in May 1997 on Canal+. Receiving positive reviews from critics, it was rebroadcast the following month and brought to theaters the following January.