Kadour Naimi (or Kaddour Naïmi; ; born November 4, 1945, in Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria) is a film producer, play wright, filmmaker, and writer.
Biography
Naimi is the son of a shoemaker father and a housewife mother. He graduated from a double high school course in French and Arabic. After graduation, he attended the University of Oran from 1965 to 1966, where he earned a double certificate of general literary studies in French and Arabic. From 1966 to 1968, Naimi attended the , which was then directed by Hubert Gignoux and Pierre Lefèvre, where he studied staging and dramaturgy. Back in Algeria, he became known in the theatrical field.
At the end of 1973, he immigrated to Belgium. From 1974 to 1979, in the Université catholique de Louvain, he obtained a degree in sociology, then, from 1979 to 1982, started a PhD in sociology of revolutions.
Interested in cinema, in 1982 he immigrated to Italy, acquired citizenship, and became involved in films, theater, and literature.
Since October 2016, he has regularly collaborated in newspapers and contributed sociological reviews, including to the French-language newspaper Le Matin d'Algérie.
In September 2018, he created Editions Electrons Libres, which offers free text or audio books, in electronic form in French, Italian, and Algerian Arabic.
Theater
In August 1968 in Oran (Algeria), Naimi created and directed the Théâtre de la mer : Compagnie de recherches et de réalisations théâtrales expérimentales (Theatre of the Sea: Research and Experimental Theatre Productions Company), whose work has been innovative in the context of Algerian culture, fostering independent production, ethical and political freedom, self-management, collective creation, research and experimentation, popular theatre, and staging performances in unconventional places (work and study places, or neighborhood squares).
The staging of shows was patterned after the traditional Algerian rite of Halqa (), with a central acting space in the round (1 in the drawing), entry and exit aisles for the actors (2), and the rest of the encircling space reserved for spectators(3). The works were presented in rural areas, to farmers who had never seen this kind of show. The public was urged to attend rehearsals and voice observations, and to interact during the performance, to be an integral part of the action
The theatrical writing is in the form of a screenplay and the performance is cinematic.
The press emphasized the originality of the innovations, and the impact produced on the public, of works such as Mon corps, ta voix et sa pensée (My body, your voice and his thought), La Valeur de l'Accord (The value of the Agreement), La Fourmi et l'Éléphant (The Ant and the Elephant), La tendresse, les enfants ! (The Tenderness, guys!). Abderrahmane Kaki expressed appreciation, as well as essayists and historians. In 1973, Et à l'aurore où est l'espoir ? (And at dawn where is the Hope ?) received the Research Prize at the International Festival of Hammamet (Tunisia). In 2012, the Algerian Ministry of Culture officially recognized the theatre for its production.
Some of Naimi's theatrical innovations have been influential with others. There are similarities between the theatre of Naimi and that produced by two men of Algerian theatre—Kateb Yacine, a playwright and director, and Abdelkader Alloula—in terms of collective creation, circular space, experimentation, variety of audiences and places of presentations, audience participation, decor and suggestion, body, voice, and mind, self-management, research, training, and the importance of Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator.