Nabil Lahlou

Nabyl Lahlou (; 1945 – 7 May 2026) was a Moroccan film director, theatre director, author and actor, known for being an innovative theater and film director, and is considered one of the most influential Moroccan theater directors of the 1980s.

Background Nabyl Lahlou was born in 1945 in Fes, Morocco. He studied theater in Paris at Académie du Théâtre de la Rue Blanche and L'Ecole Charles Dullin, and later taught at Kordj-el-Kifane (Algeria).

Theatre Lahlou directed his first play Al-Sa"aa in Morocco in 1965, then left to study in France, returning in 1970. Written in 1968, his play Ophélie n'est pas morte was influenced by the Shakespearean, with its title being a reference to Shakespeare's Ophelia. Supported financially by the Morocco Ministry of Culture, it was first performed in 1969 by Lahlou's 'University Theater Companies'. Within the play, the two different Shakespeare characters of Hamlet and Macbeth are presented in a micro drama with the characters voluntarily paralyzed and their acting confined by the use of crutches or wheelchairs. His production of Al-Salahif (The Turtles) was considered a breakthrough. Al Kanfoudi (1978) Le Gouverneur General de l'ile Chakerbakerben (1980) Brahim Who? (1982) The Soul That Brays (1984) Komany (1989) The Night of the Crime (1992) The Years of Exile (2002) Tabite or Not Tabite (2005) Look at the King in the Moon (2011)