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Sami Outalbali and Zbeida Belhajamor in “A story of love and desire”
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On August 29, 2021, the jury of the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival – composed among others of the actress Nicole Garcia, the actor Reda Kateb or the rapper Oxmo Puccino -, crowned with its most prestigious prize, the Valois de Diamant for the best film, the second feature film of the director Leyla Bouzid , A story of love and desire. The film follows Ahmed, a student from the suburbs entering university, and his meeting with Farah, a young Tunisian, on the benches of the Sorbonne. Always rocked by very conservative ideas about women and relationships, he falls in love for the first time and discovers sexuality, which he had always repressed because of his prejudices. If this love story tinged with eroticism and modesty was acclaimed for the first time during its presentation during Critics’ Week at the last Cannes Film Festival, this time it was the performances of the two main actors that truly captivated the critics. Although the play of Zbeida Belhajamor (Farah) was noticed, it is especially that of Sami Outalbali (Ahmed) who conquered the jury, so that he left with the Valois of the actor (interpretation prize male). An extraordinary first consecration for the young actor, who hopes to have them “Touched in a powerful place and made something resonate in them”.
At only twenty-two, Sami Outalbali already has a filmography longer than some 40-year-old actors. When he was six years old, he took part in his first filming in the TV movie We must save Said, then connects the small roles when arriving at the college. He then participates in an episode of Host family, landed the same year a small role in The Tuches, then connects the television projects with Live the Colo! in 2012 et Sam in 2016. Sami was seventeen at the time, already several roles to his credit, and had just realized that he wanted to make it his profession. “Even though I started very young, I didn’t always want to make it my job. While I was trying to become a professional basketball player or even a cryptographer, I realized that I was unhappy when I was not shooting ”. If at this time Sami is fascinated by The Great Beauty by Paolo Sorrentino, the film in which he would have dreamed of playing, he continues his career on the small screen, first with the series The big ones, broadcast on OCS, where he plays Ilyes, a young man in search of himself and his sexuality, then with Prides, an Arte mini-series on the theme of homosexuality. These experiences then opened the doors of the cinema to him since he played in feature films. Lola towards the Sea and A real man in 2019.
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But what will make Sami Outalbali a real star rising French cinema, these are his roles in the Netflix series Deadly, where he plays the hero’s missing brother, and more particularly in the successful British show of the platform, Sex Education, where he plays a young French Don Juan. The series has also strongly marked by its innovative approach to sexuality, which was extremely lacking in young people, deprived of any sexual education worthy of the name. “The series came to fill a real gap. It’s awesome and sad at the same time. I find it very unfortunate and even serious that it took a Netflix series to learn about sexuality and make up for a lack in the education system ”. Even if Sami Outalbali has (almost) always embodied roles directly or indirectly linked to the search for identity and sexuality, the young actor considers that he does not defend any cause (because to defend only one would be to everyone else), although he likes to honor people or stories you never hear. “My primary goal is to serve a film and its story, but I love the idea that with a role I can get a message across and reach people”.
In his latest film, A story of love and desire, the actor plays a young man who sees all his prejudices about love and sex being turned upside down by a single encounter. A desire for the director, Leyla Bouzid, to shake up customs and show the male body with an eye eager to sublimate it, and especially to “To honor a different masculinity, which is not new, but which has never been shown before”. Even if Sami Outalbali knows how to play roles as complex as they are angelic to perfection, he would like to highlight his North African culture in his roles, at least not in the way we see it most often: “Like the movies Native by Rachid Bouchareb and Or Noir with Tahar Rahim, I would like to play in feature films that highlight my culture as we do not know it. A story in which we are neither victims nor placed at the heart of prejudices as is often the case ”. Even if he would dream of playing in a period film in costume, Sami Outalbali will return to the big screen in 2022 with a feature film very different from the previous ones: November, by Cédric Jimenez, where he will play a police officer working on the investigation after the attacks of November 13, 2015.
A story of love and desire (2021) by Leyla Bouzid, Valois de Diamant prize at the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival 2021. Currently in theaters.
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