The playwright and director Mohamed Hilmi, “pillar of radio theater” and director of numerous cinematographic works, was buried Wednesday in the cemetery of Sidi M’hamed in Algiers in the presence of his relatives and traveling companions.
Mohamed Hilmi died on Wednesday morning in Algiers at the age of 90.
Present at the funeral, Abdelmadjid Bali, program designer and traveling companion of the deceased, regrets the loss of a “founding father of radio theater and Algerian cultural action” saluting the memory of an “accomplished autodidact” always available to guide and train the youngest.
He also noted that Mohamed Hilmi succeeded in transposing what he learned on stage to radio theater productions and that many practitioners of the 4th art are part of the continuity of his work.
Affected by this great loss, the president of the association “Lumière”, Amer Rabia, bowed before a “director, a producer and a leader of extraordinary men” who served the “radio and television theater but also the theater, song and the world of children’s programs “.
Addressing another aspect of Mohamed Hilmi’s career, Hakim Taoussar, former head of the National Copyright Office, recalled that the deceased had also worked a lot for the protection of artists’ rights and for the development of National Office for Copyright and Neighboring Rights (Onda), noting that it was also a member of the International Confederation of the Society of Authors and Composers.
Born in 1931, Mohamed Hilmi, whose real name was Brahimi Mohamed Ameziane, older brother of the recently deceased actor Said Hilmi, played his first role in 1947 in the play “Ould Ellil” in Mahieddine Bachtarzi’s troupe.
In 1949, he joined Rédha Falaki on the radio and wrote a radio play for the Kabyle channel, which he performed with Cheikh Noureddine.
After the independence, he was the author of numerous sketches and embarks on the production of television movies, short and medium-length films including “Chkoune Yassbag”, “El Ghoumouk”, “Chitta”, “Matfahmine”, or even “Listihlak” .
In 1993, he signed his first feature film, “El Ouelf Essaib”, and published a satirical comedy entitled “Démocra-cirque, or the cry of the silence” in addition to the book “The present of the past”.
