Lyna Khoudri is a 30-year-old French-Algerian actress Lyna Khoudri who is all the rage. She has been awarded many times, with the prize for best actress, in the Orizzonti section, at the Venice Film Festival for her role as Feriel in the feature film The Blessed by Sofia Djama. She also stood out in 2019 in the role of Nedjma, a student, in the feature film Papicha. Lyna is the daughter of Algerian television journalist Rabah Khoudri. She moved to Paris in the 90s, and followed an artistic course from her youth, before obtaining a diploma in performing arts.
The young actress is this time on the poster of Rachid Bouchareb’s film: Our Brothers. She will also be played in The Three Musketeers, a highly anticipated film in 2023. In an interview with the Middle East Eye media, she talks about her projects, and recalls her attachment to her country of origin: Algeria.
Lyna Khoudri: “it is a necessity to talk about it”
In Nos Frangins, Lyna plays the role of Sarah Oussekine, sister of Malik Oussekine.
As a reminder, Malik Oussekine was a Franco-Algerian student who marched near student protests in Paris against university reforms and proposed immigration restrictions. Although he was not involved at all, he was chased and beaten to death by the police.
The actress explains that she had to document herself in order “to portray this character”. She was in fact neither present nor aware of the affair since “it is not her generation”. She explains that the facts took place the same night as the death of Abdel Benyahia and that even if the affair was publicized, “the media treatment of the Abdel Benyahia affair, a completely stifled affair”.
Lyna affirms: “It is for this reason that I found it important to take part in this project”.
In addition, Rachid Bouchareb told them how he experienced things, which reminded him of recent cases (Black Lives Matter or the Adama Traoré affair) which were publicized. According to the young actress, this made her “make her aware of the need to talk about it today”.
We therefore notice that, despite the years, Lynda selects her projects consciously or not by being linked to the history of her country of origin.
Daughter of an Algerian journalist, Lyna is closely linked to her roots
During this same interview, Lyna talks about her father, a television journalist, and his help in his professional career. She explains that this gave her “the love of the image” and that this profession of actress brought her closer to her father.
The actress explains: “My father taught me to love the image, to look at a screen, to analyze a plan, to manipulate a camera, to make the difference between techniques…”.
Lyna has therefore been immersed in the audio-visual world since she was very young, soaking up terms and processes without realizing it. She also held underlined a very important point: she was not boosted. She explains that her father did everything in Algeria, while she did everything in France. Her father did not know any of the two big names with whom she collaborated (Rachid Bouchareb and Mounia Meddour).
Nevertheless, she explains that he transmitted to her the love of cinema but above all the love of Algeria, thus recalling the origins with which she identifies.
