Nadia Kaci

Nadia Kaci — Biography

Nadia Kaci is an Algiers-born actress who has worked for more than three decades in Algerian and French cinema and also on stage. She grew up in Algeria, has lived in France since 1993, and holds both Algerian and French citizenship. She is counted among the leading actresses of Algerian and Franco-Algerian cinema.

She entered cinema with Merzak Allouache's Bab El-Oued City (1994), playing Yamina, the liberal sister forced to wear a veil. The film condemns Islamist violence and won the International Federation of Film Critics award at Cannes. Bent Familia (1997), It All Starts Today (1999) and, in 2000, The Harem of Madame Osmane followed. As Julie in Nationale 7, she was praised by one critic for "lightness but real mettle". Viva Laldjérie (2004), Les Suspects (2004) and Délice Paloma (2007, directed by Nadir Moknèche) kept her in front of Algerian and Franco-Algerian audiences.

From the 2010s she appeared in The Well (2015), Rayhana Obermeyer's I Still Hide to Smoke (2016), Lola Pater and The Blessed (both 2017), and played Madame Kamissi in Papicha (2019), directed by Mounia Meddour, which premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and follows a fashion-obsessed student in the early 1990s. On television she has been seen in L'Affaire Ben Barka and, in 2022, The Crimson Rivers.