Yamina Benguigui

Vocation

French film director and politician of Algerian descent. She is known for her films on gender issues in the North African immigrant community in France. Benguigui's parents were Algerian Kabyle 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, a dentist, 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. In the French municipal elections of March 2008 Benguigui was elected to represent the 20th arrondissement of Paris on the Paris city council, where she concerned herself in particular with human rights and the fight against discrimination. She is associated with the Socialist Party. On 16 May 2012 President François Hollande of France appointed her to the post of Junior Minister for French Nationals Abroad and Relations with La Francophonie (French-speaking countries worldwide) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On 21 June 2012, Yamina Benguigui has been confirmed as Minister for la Francophonie in the French Government. On 30 June 2012, The French President Francois Hollande asked Yamina Benguigui to succeed to Former French Prime Minister Jean Pierre Raffarin as his authorized representative for the OIF. She divorced her first husband Hamza Mezhoud on 18 November 1975, when she was 20. She married Francis Benguigui on 19 October 1984. Link to Wikipedia biography