Pozla

Rémi Zaarour, known by the pseudonym Pozla (born 1982, Amiens, France) is a French cartoonist and animator. He is best known for his graphic novels and for his award-winning student film Le Building.

Early life and education Zaarour was born in 1982 in Amiens. He has said that he has "always drawn in a rather obsessive way" and that he began experimenting with graffiti at an early age. Through this latter pursuit, he often got into trouble with the police - he also adopted the pseudonym Pozla during this time, which is derived from the French phrase for "Put it there". After high school, he attended ESAAT in Roubaix.

In 2004, Zaarour created the short student film Zob-Zob est amoureux (Zob-Zob in Love). The same year, he collaborated with classmates Xavier Ramonède, Pierre Perifel, and Jun Frederic Violeton on a second short film, Festival Qualité. For his group thesis film, Le Building, Zaarour reteamed with Ramonède and Perifel, and also worked with Marco Nguyen and Olivier Staphylas. Le Building uses a combination of 2D and 3D animation. Zaarour worked on the 2D segments and finalized the film's character designs. He also assisted Perifel in creating the film's backgrounds. Le Building screened in numerous international film festivals and won several awards, including Best Undergraduate Animation at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. While at Gobelins, Zaarour had studied Flash animation under one of the creators of Lascars, Boris Dolivet. In the same year that the Lascars feature film was released, Zaarour and Dolivet collaborated on a short film tied to the series - Les Lascars: Cuccarazza, which was directed by Zaarour and partially written by Dolivet.

Extending their partnership into the realm of comics, Zaarour and Dolivet co-created the graphic novel series Monkey Bizness. Published under their respective pseudonyms, Pozla and ElDiablo, Zaarour is credited as the illustrator of this series and Dolivet as the writer. and Volume 3 was released in 2017.

In addition to Lascars, Zaarour has worked as an animator on the films Persepolis, The Rabbi's Cat, Ernest & Celestine, and A Monster in Paris.

The Rabbi's Cat offered Zaarour the chance to reteam with his Gobelins classmate and Le Building co-director Marco Nguyen, who served as an animation director on that film. Zaarour also contributed to the music video for Tryo's song "Greenwashing", which was directed by Nguyen.

Zaarour has continued to pursue graffiti art as a side occupation. Unlike his youthful ventures, his work has now been officially recognized the Sergent Paper Gallery, the , and the Galerie l'Attrape Rêve.

Zaarour regularly returns to his hometown, Amiens, where he teaches a class at Waide Somme, a local animation school.