Ridha Behi

Ridha Behi is a Tunisian director and producer. He is known for The Magic Box and Always Brando.

Career Ridha Behi studied sociology and obtained a master's degree in 1973 at the Paris Nanterre University and a PhD at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in 1977 with a thesis titled Cinema and Society in Tunisia in the 1960s under the management of Marc Ferro. As a Tunisian TV assistant, he wrote the scripts for three short films between 1964 and 1967, and in 1967 made his first short film, La Femme statue, as part of the Tunisian Federation of Amateur Filmmakers.

He announced his new feature film initially titled Brando and Brando with Marlon Brando portraying himself. But the filming was interrupted by the death of Marlon Brando.

A teacher at the Higher School of Audiovisual and Cinema of Gammarth, he leads various writing workshops around the world, including Méditalents, which he chaired in Morocco in 2012.

His film The Flower of Aleppo was released in the year 2016. It was selected as the Tunisian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards, but was changed to As I Open My Eyes by Leyla Bouzid. The film had its initial release at the 27th Carthage Film Festival on 28 October 2016, then it had its regular release in Tunisia on 6 November 2016.

He also directed a dozen of documentaries in Arab states of the Persian Gulf between 1979 and 1983, and a series for the channel Al Jazeera titled Portraits of filmmakers, between 2006 and 2008. Grand Officer of the Tunisian Order of Merit – (2016) "Grand Prix Tribute" of Carthage Film Festival – (2017) Award for Best Director at the International Film Festival of the Mediterranean Countries of Alexandria – (2017) Winner of the Public prize at the Mons International Film Festival – (2017)

He is a regular Member or President of Juries in the Arab world:

2008 – Jury member (video) of the Carthage Film Festival 2014 – Jury member (feature films) of the Luxor African Film Festival 2018 – Member of the Grand jury of Carthage Film Festival 2019 – Jury member of the Malmö Arab Film Festival (Sweden)