Nouri Bouzid was born in 1945 in Sfax, the second largest city in Tunisia. He studied
cinema at the Institut National Superieur des Arts du Spectacle (INSAS) in Brussels
from 1968 to 1972, where he began working in film. Bouzid completed further training in Paris in 1972 while working on the film -Và directed by Andre Delvaux. He has worked with Steven Spielberg, A. Ben Ammar, Max Pecas, David Hemmings, Philippe Clair and Pascal F. Campanile, among others. Upon return to Tunesia, Bouzid joined the Tunisian television Channel RTT.

Bouzid was imprisoned from 1973 to 1979 for his membership in the political organization GEAST (Groupe d’Études et d’Action Socialiste Tunisien). Following his release, he worked again as assistant director on several Tunisian and international film projects. In 1986, his first feature film, Man of Ashes, the story of a young man who just before his wedding recalls the trauma of his childhood, was selected for the 1986 Cannes Film Festival––as were his next three films. Man of Ashes received the Golden Tanit at the Carthage Film Days 1986. His 2006 film Making Of was similarly recognized.

Throughout the 1990s, Bouzid collaborated with some of Tunisian cinema’s most influential fellow filmmakers, including Férid Boughedir for Halfaouine and Moufida Tlatli for The Silences of the Palace. In 1994, Nouri Bouzid founded a school of cinema in Tunisia, the EDAC, where he continues to teach today. He has also taught film at the Faculty of Philosophy in Manouba and at the Film Institute in Qamart, both in Tunisia. Bouzid has produced, directed or written over a dozen films and is also an accomplished poet. In 1998 Bouzid was awarded the Presidential Prize of the Cinema in Tunisia. In 1992, Bouzid was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres in France.