El Ouelf Essaïb

Algerian youth of the 1960s, straddling traditional South Mediterranean and Western culture and the desire for emancipation of younger generations to find true love.

27 years after 1962, Antoine returns to Algiers...

Rabie is a kid from Sétif in 1980, trying to collect money to buy a wheelchair for his paralyzid sister Sassia, so she can get out of the house.

In Algiers in 1993, while the civil war is starting, Mrs Osmane's tenants have to endure her bad temper. Her husband left her and the fear to lose her respectability haunt her. The former member of the Resistance during the Independence War persists in controlling the slightest moves of the households rather than struggle against her own frustrations. Learning her daughter is in love, the possibility of finding herself alone will push her to the limit: The symbolical Mrs Osmane "harem" is about to collapse.

A stubborn director who wants to rediscover the Algiers of his childhood comes up against the “Hollywood” fantasies of his characters, non-professionals all hoping to be able to become “someone else”, at least for the duration of a film… Mise en abyme for a journey into megalomania…

Selim Mechoubine, a young man of 28, is the eldest of a large family. In the cramped accommodation he shares with his parents, brothers and sisters... he occupies the kitchen, the refuge of his dreams and his many fantasies. Selim, the court clerk where divorcing couples parade..., wants to get married. His mother finds him “the rare pearl”. But now, the bride's family demands that the couple have their own home... Selim's misadventure begins; he finds himself confronted with the problems of the housing crisis which forces him to begin a long quest, procedures, requests to find the sine qua non condition for his marriage.

In Kabylie, rude mountain region in the north of Algeria. Arezki finds the young Larbi exhausted, buried under the snow. He takes him in and nurses him until he's recovered. The host seduces Arezki's daughter. She is pregnant. This is an unsupportable shame to the father of the female sinner. Arezki claims vengeance. He leaves his house and takes the oath not to come back before having killed Larbi who betrayed him under his own roof.

Fous de Musique by Jean-Charles Carlus (1957) is a musical comedy featuring Rouiched, Mahieddine Bentir and the famous Bendaoud orchestra. Shot during the Algerian War, the film was not released until after independence and was probably shown in Paris in cinemas intended for immigrant workers around 1967. Sources: Archives Numériques du Cinéma Algérien

While trying by all means to stay out of the bloody turmoil caused by the Battle of Algiers, Hassan, an honest and naive family man, is wrongfully accused of terrorism by the French colonial army in "Hassan Terro." After escaping in "The Escape of Hassan Terro," Hassan is forced to join the resistance in "Hassan Terro in the Maquis."

The film dialectically explores the phenomena of family alliances in urban and rural areas, technocracy, and the Algerian landed bourgeoisie. The film was completed but apparently never distributed by the ONCIC.

Inspector Tahar and his apprentice are invited by Mama Traki, a popular Tunisian heroine, to spend their vacation in Tunis. Before leaving Algiers, they stop at a tourist complex where a murder has just been committed. The investigation full of surprises and twists and turns will take them to Tunis where they will find Ommi Traki and his family...

Like every year in Zitouna, a bear handler passes by. With his creature, he comes to challenge the small community. And like every year, it is Slimane El Mabrouk who defends the honor of the tribe. But this time, he dies, leaving two orphans, Omar and Ourida. Robbed of their inheritance, the children will grow up alone. The years pass, the French army settles in, and with it, the war. Mysteriously, one day, after the murder of a French legionnaire, Omar disappears into the bush, while his sister dies in childbirth. Omar will return to the village, much later, once independence has been acquired, as a representative of power and with this enigmatic formula: "You must know that the Revolution has not forgotten you". Personal revenge? Sincere desire to bring progress and modernity? ... The inhabitants of Zitouna, upset in their ancestral way of life, will not be long in having an answer to their questions.

Two young Algerians born in France leave the Paris region to return with their parents to the village of their origins. They speak neither Arabic nor Berber. First barrier which isolates them from their new environment and which is further accentuated by the problem of generations, present here as in France. The social position of Algerian women posed to young emigrants is more immediately felt and proves to be a generator of conflict. Thanks to the plot, it is the whole problem of the reintegration of emigrants in their land of origin that the film poses and illustrates.

Originally commissioned by the city of Algiers to promote tourism, Mohamed Zinet’s Tahia ya Didou blends documentary with fiction to create a poetic, acerbic and rapturous portrait of the director’s native city. The camera travels freely, through the port, market, streets and cafés, capturing everyday people, some of whom recur frequently enough to seem like protagonists. The nominal plotline follows a French tourist couple’s leisurely visit to the city, the man having previously served in the army during the Algerian war. As they walk around, his comments betray his mindset’s racist colonial prejudices, while his wife reiterates asinine clichés. Their unhurried wandering is interrupted when he comes across a blind man and realises that he tortured him during his army service. The film is punctuated with punchy sequences that show a poet named Momo delivering verse as an elegy for Algiers.

In the 70s, in the Goutte d'or district, three friends of Algerian origin: Poulou, a failed boxer, Amar, the clumsiest of thieves, and Jibé, a public writer for illiterate compatriots whose lives he knows in detail. As he betrays none of their secrets, he enjoys great prestige in the bistros where he works. The three of them lead a casual life, raising money by illicit means. It's only when Poulou and Amar leave that Jibé understands his isolation and marginalization. The images as well as the sounds help to reinforce the feeling that Paris is a city where he is both at home and a terrible stranger.

While he tries by all means to stay out of the bloody upheavals caused by the battle of Algiers, Hassan, an honest and naive father, unknowingly offers hospitality to a mujahid actively sought by the army. French. A series of events and misunderstandings quickly catapult him to the forefront, presenting him under the pseudonym “Hassan Terro”, a great fictitious terrorist who would have sworn the doom of the French army...

The story of Hassan, the handyman in the inn of his sister Aïcha, widowed and childless. A whole series of incidents, misunderstandings, will punctuate his daily routine in which we find him in turn driver, waiter, welder, etc. But, he refuses to submit to anything that does not conform to the idea he has of society and things...

Moussa, a young Franco-Algerian, returns to Algeria, but adapting to life in his country of origin proves difficult. Just as he is about to leave for France, he is called up for military service, which suits him fine because he is secretly in love with the beautiful Nacira.

In one of the tribes of the Algerian Sahara, everyone awaits the arrival of the hero who will defend the rights of the poor. A man decides one day to put the mark of the "hero" on his newborn son and the whole tribe celebrates the arrival of this eagerly awaited messiah who came to save them. This false hero then grows up by assuming his role of savior. Filled with cynicism, he crosses the countryside and has a number of adventures.

A modern couple seeks to find marital happiness in a context where Algerian society is taking the “first step” towards female emancipation. A woman becomes president of a popular municipal assembly. Will she find happiness ?