Tahar Hannache

Tahar Hannache (in Arabic: طاهر حناش), whose real name is Tahar Ben Kouider Belhannache, is an Algerian actor, director, director of photography and screenwriter, born on November 26, 1898 in Constantine. He is considered the pioneer of Algerian cinema.

Tahar Hannache, at the age of ten or eleven, discovered the films of Charlie Chaplin. Fascinated, his passion for cinema grew and he became a regular at the ciné-bus, and at the new cinema in Constantine, the Nunez, where he dissected and analyzed the films that he had often seen several times.

Later, his father went bankrupt and died shortly after. Deeply affected by this loss, Tahar Hannache, who was called up for French military service, was demobilized in 1920 in France. One day, he visited a legendary Parisian film studio, a director who was looking for Arab faces, noticed him and hired him. Then, Tahar seized all the opportunities that came his way, exercising several cinematographic professions, from director of photography to assistant director, cameraman, and played important roles as an actor.