Rachid El Ouali

Biography

His first award came in 1995: at the National Film Festival in Tangier, El Ouali won the prize for best supporting role in “The Dreams Thief”, directed by Hakim Noury.

He was born on 3 April 1965 in Rabat, in the Akkari district, into a large family; his younger brother Hicham El Ouali also became an actor. He attended schools in Rabat and in 1984 took his baccalaureate in the literary stream. He then entered the Higher Institute of Dramatic Art and Cultural Animation, from which he graduated in 1986. According to other accounts, he passed a competitive examination in dramatic art and studied at the drama school of the Mohammed V National Theatre in Rabat; accounts of his training differ. He acted on the stage at first, but his theatre period was short: film directors noticed him. His first notable film role is said to be “Love in Casablanca” (1989), in which he played a small part; in 1991 he appeared in “Night of the Crime”. From the early 1990s he played minor roles, and from the middle of the decade he was given leading ones, for example in “Mektoub” (1996), a film by Nabil Ayouch. It was then that his work with Hakim Noury began: “The Dreams Thief”, “Aabbirou Fi Samtt” (They Crossed in Silence), “A Woman’s Fate”, and later “She’s Diabetic & Hypertensive Yet Won’t Die” in two parts (1999 and 2005). His fame grew in the early 2000s after “A Woman’s Trial” and “Aallal El Qelda” (2003), in which he played the title character. Among his foreign work, the filmographies list “Solomon” (1997).

On television he is remembered for the series “Flock of Pigeons” (2000), in which he played Hemmadi, the comedy “Hossein & Safia” (2011) and the drama “The Underdogs” (2006). Later he appeared in the series “The Past Never Dies” (2019) and “Mal Eddounia” (2023); for the first of them he received the award for best dramatic role of the year in 2019. He also acted in “Satan’s Tears” (2015), and in 2022 won the best actor prize for that role at the Crystal Star festival of Moroccan cinema in Belgium.

He turned to directing after a long career as an actor. The short film “Ninni ya Moummou” (2004) was his first; in 2006–2008 came “The Late One”, “The Fly and Me” and “L’Aube” (the dates vary). With Mohamed Karrat he directed “Nhar Tzad Tfa Dou”. His first feature film, “Yemma”, came out in 2013, and for the lead role in it El Ouali received awards at festivals in Agadir (2013), in Algiers (2014, shared) and in Liège (2015). For television he directed individual episodes of “The Other Dimension” and of the comedy series “Nass El Houma” (2013).

He became a presenter on the strength of his training in cultural animation at the institute: he hosted several seasons of “Lalla Laaroussa”, and in 2009 the Maghreb version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” on the channel Nessma.

Among other honours: in 2015 King Mohammed VI made him a Commander of the Order of the Throne, and in 2018 he shared the best actor prize at the festival in Oujda with the young Yahya El Ouali for “Noah Can’t Swim”. In recent years he has been honoured at festivals in Rabat, Chefchaouen, Fez and Casablanca.