Jamil Benhamamouch

Jamil Benhamamouch, the nephew of playwright Abdelkader Alloula, grew up surrounded by theater. As a young adult, he had lived for several years in Europe, where he was involved in both acting in and directing the plays of his uncle. He immersed himself in the works of twentieth-century theater theorists and took a formative workshop with Jean-Paul Denizon, actor, director, and associate of renowned director Peter Brook. He acted in Alloula’s play El-Lithem (The Veil), under the direction of Kheireddine Lardjam. He has directed five of Abdelkader Alloula’s plays, including Et-Teffeh/Apples (in both Arabic and English, with Istijmam), El-Ajouad (The Generous Ones, with Istijmam), Qissas Nasin (The Stories of Aziz Nesin), Homq Salim (adapted from Gogol’s Diary of a Madman), and Alloula’s unpublished script L’Astuce (The Clever Trick, in French, with Istijmam in collaboration with the Association Grande Maison of Tlemcen). He won the Best in Show award for his production of Alloula’s play El-Shaʿab Faq bi-l-Wajib (The People Became Aware of Their Duty) at the Mostaganem Festival of Amateur Theater in 2006. Jamil has engaged in numerous collaborations with troupes from across Algeria and Europe, including, with Istijmam, the coproduction of Yadra! (What’s Up!) with youth associations from Algeria, France, and Germany. He also led a seminar on the halqa and the goual for the International Academy of Acting in Rome. With Istijmam, he pioneered a series of improvisation workshops in Algeria called Improvizoo! At the time of the tour, Jamil was working as an audio engineer in Paris.