Tarak Ben Ammar

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Tarak Ben Ammar ( Arabic طارق بن عمار, DMG Ṭāriq b. ʿAmmār ; * June 12, 1949 in Tunis , Tunisia ) is a Tunisian film producer .

Life

Tarak Ben Ammar was born in Tunis to a Tunisian father and a Corsican mother. His aunt, Wassila Bourguiba , was the second wife of the former Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba , and thus “First Lady” of Tunisia.

As a young man, Ben Ammar studied International Economics at Georgetown University in Washington, DC ( USA ), where he obtained his diploma in 1970. With the aforementioned ties to the Tunisian President, Ben Ammar founded Carthago Films , a Tunis-based production company, in 1974 , with which he produced Roberto Rossellini's drama The Messiah in 1975 . He also set up Empire Studios in Hammamet , an area the size of ten hectares. This is where Franco Zeffirelli's four-part television series Jesus of Nazareth was produced in 1977 . In the early 1980s, Hollywood and the well-known director Steven Spielberg became aware of the favorable production conditions that prevailed in Hammamet and Tunis, so that in 1984 Spielberg had parts of the adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark produced in Tunisia.

In the mid-1980s, Ben Ammar settled in France , from where he ran his two film studios in Tunisia. He also began working as a media consultant for greats such as Silvio Berlusconi and Rupert Murdoch . In 1984 he was accepted into the Legion of Honor by President François Mitterrand . In 1989, Ben Ammar, in collaboration with Berlusconi, founded Quinta Communications , a production company that was primarily to produce European films; In 1995 the German Kirch group joined Quinta. Together they should produce the ten-part series The Bible by 2001 . It is noticeable that although Ben Ammar belongs to the Muslim religion, he has mainly produced films that have a Christian theme.

In 1996 Tarak Ben Ammar became the manager of the HIStory World Tour of the American musician Michael Jackson . By 1996 he was to organize around 60 concerts by the King of Pop.

Today Tarak Ben Ammar lives in France. He is a co-owner of several production companies, and he also owns 14 percent of the television station TV Breizh . He is also a multimillionaire through stock market speculation.

He is married and has three sons and a daughter.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ben Ammar, Tarak
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Tunisian film producer
DATE OF BIRTH June 12, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Tunis , Tunisia