Born in Antwerp to a Belgian Flemish mother and a Tunisian father, Mohsen El Gharbi graduated from LASSAD, the International School of Theatre in Brussels. He went on to perfect his craft under masters of the theatre: Ariane Mouchkine, Dario Fo and Yoshi Oida. Having settled in Montreal in 1997, he wrote his first drama two years later: Arlequin et Tyrano was directed by Yves Dagenais. In 2000, he joined the Pol Pelletier theatre company, after which he left for Brussels to create – after a year of improvization – Omi Mouna, his first monologue written in Dutch. This was followed two years later by Omi Mouna ou ma rencontre fantastique avec mon arrière-grand-mère (Omi Mouna or my fantastic encounter with my great-grandmother), a tragicomedy that he wrote, performed and directed. In 2008, this one-man band put on the ironic monologue Juste pour mourir – monologue d’un kamikaze raté (Just for death – monologue of a failed kamikaze) at the Festival du Monde Arabe de Montréal. He played the lead in the Quebec television series Mon meilleur Ennemi, Watatatow and 450 chemin du Golf, as well as in La neige cache l’ombre des figuiers, a short film directed by Samer Najiri that won several awards, including at the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in 2010. He created Le dernier rôle (The last role) in 2014, his fifth work as a playwright and his third as a director. He is one of the 43 cast members of Mani Soleymanlou’s most recent work, Trois. He recently performed in L’énigme de Camus – une passion algérienne by Jean-Marie Papapietro and in Les trois mousquetaires, plomberie by Satellite Théâtre. His short film Omi Mouna’s Secret marks his first foray into the film world.
