Characters and Identities

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• Alice Carré

  

  Alice Carré, an author and director, was born and raised in the Paris suburbs. She began writing while working on a thesis in Theater Studies focused on contemporary set design and empty spaces, and while teaching for several years.

  She explores French colonial amnesia, focusing initially on the African riflemen who fought alongside France from 1939 to 1945—a subject that led to the writing of *Brazza – Ouidah* – Saint-Denis, which she staged in 2021 with her company, Eia!
  With Margaux Eskenazi and the Nova theater company, she conceived and co-wrote *Nous sommes de ceux qui disent non à l’ombre* (2017) and *Et le cœur fume encore*, dedicated to memories of the Algerian War (2020). In 2022, she wrote the play *1983*, about activism in working-class neighborhoods and the economic and societal upheaval of the 1980s in France, which Margaux directed and which premiered at the TNP in Villeurbanne.

  She co-wrote *Kap o’ mond* with Haitian researcher Carlo Handy Charles, a play about the friendship between two young men—a Frenchman and a Haitian—who explore Haiti’s past and present together; the play was directed by Olivier Coulon-Jablonka (2022). She also worked alongside Coulon-Jablonka and Sima Khatami on *La Trêve*, the No. 15 most-watched play of 2021, at the Théâtre de la Commune.

  She is co-writing a six-episode animated series with Alice Zeniter, *Petite Casbah* (France TV and Okoo, 2024), the feature-length version of which will be released in theaters on October 14 (2026).

  She wrote and directed *Écorces, polar forestier*, a play that delves into the world of logging and monoculture forests through a police investigation; it premiered in January 2026 at the Théâtre de la Cité internationale.

• Hassen Ferhani

  

  A director and cinematographer born in 1986 in Algiers, Hassen Ferhani cultivated his passion at the Chrysalide film club, where he served as co-host from 2003 to 2008. *Les Baies d’Alger* (2006), a short fiction film, earned him recognition in several international competitions. This was followed by *Le vol du 140* (2008, Fémis d’été), *Afric Hotel* (2010, co-directed), and *Tarzan, Don Quixote, and Us* (2013).

  There he developed his artistic approach—a exploration of reality infused with fiction—the full scope of which he demonstrates in his two multi-award-winning feature films. *A Roundabout in My Head* (2015) won, among other honors, the FID Grand Prix in the French competition and the McMillan-Stewart Fellowship (Harvard), and became the first film at the Carthage Film Festival to receive two Tanit d’Or awards.

  Among some twenty awards (Algiers, Nantes, Seoul, Toronto, Turin, Valdivia…), *143 rue du Désert* (2019) earned him the Leopard Award for Best Emerging Director at the Locarno Film Festival.
  His latest film, *Alea Jacarandas* (2026), was selected for several festivals and won the Burning Lights competition prize at Visions du Réel.

• Alice Zeniter

  

  Alice Zeniter was born in 1986. After extensive studies in literature and theater, she left college to devote herself to writing. She has published several novels, including *Sombre dimanche* (Prix du Livre Inter, 2013), *Juste avant l’Oubli* (Renaudot High School Students’ Prize, 2015), *L’Art de perdre* (Goncourt High School Students’ Prize, 2017), and *Frapper l’épopée*.

  Alice Zeniter is an author and theater director with her company, L’Entente Cordiale. Her work includes two children’s plays, *Un Ours of course* and *Hansel and Gretel: The Beginning of Hunger*, as well as several musical readings.

  In 2020, she created a one-woman show, *Je suis une fille sans histoire*, which she performed for three years. Her plays are published by Actes Sud and l’Arche.