الولف صعيب - El Ouelf Essaïb

An experimental essay film about terrorism, media, violence and globalisation. Three infotainment news broadcasts - a rollercoaster, a hijacking, and an influencer - are soundtracked by pulsating experimental electronics that push the psychic residue of a post war-on-terror world out of the unconscious and onto the screen. Capitalism, imperialism, desire; all three are implicated in a nihilism that has seeped from the news into the social psyche.

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.

Two rich tourists, a photographer and a painter, meet during a walk in Kabylia. Their wanderings are an opportunity to highlight the many tourist and picturesque places on the Algerian coast. This film commissioned by the Defense Communication and Audiovisual Production Establishment (ECPAD), attempts to sell a tourist destination when Algeria was in flames with the outbreak of the Algerian national liberation war. Filmed with the colonial lens of the time, the natives are only one element of a picturesque setting, and the final kiss between a French woman and an Arab man is an attempt to demonstrate a pacified country. Despite everything, the film constitutes a precious archive for Béjaïa, which is the subject for the first time of a film which immortalizes a moment in its history, and to introduce the work of Tahar Hannache, actor, cinematographer and director, one of the pioneers of Algerian cinema.

امرأتان

Omar, better known as Omar the Strawberry, is an old-fashioned bandit. Forced to flee to Algeria, he makes a living out of petty crime, accompanied by his famous sidekick Roger. After decades of ruling the French criminal underworld, they must come to terms with their new life together, which until now has been one of debauchery and violence.

In 1988, Johnny Leclerc, the son of a Norman mother and an Alsatian father, lives in a suburban housing estate with his friends. He behaves like a Muslim, observes Ramadan and wears a djelaba. He's even convinced that his name is Abdelbachir and that he was born in a small village in the bled. When his friend Yacine gets into trouble with a local kaid and decides to return to Algeria for the vacations, he smuggles himself into the Sabri family's luggage to fulfill his dream and finally get to know his "roots". As soon as he arrived on the Algerian coast, Johnny felt right at home. But Yacine is opposed to his father, who wants to arrange his marriage.

Mounir Mekbek lives with his family in a small village in the heart of the Algerian countryside. Very proud and sure of himself, he has only one dream- to finally be appreciated by his fellow villagers. Screwing up his carefully maintained image is his headstrong, narcoleptic sister Rym who falls asleep anywhere and whom the village is convinced will end up a spinster. One evening, Mounir returns from town drunk and announces that he's found a suitor for his sister. The fake story snowballs and snowballs until the suitor morphs into a rich, blonde Australian. The village begins preparing for the wedding in earnest - but without a bridegroom in sight.

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...

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.

The writer Louis Gardel remembers his youth in Algeria. In 1955, Louis is 15 years old and lives with his grandmother Zoé. Zoé is friend with president Steiger, leader of the French settlers but also with the old Arab Bouarab. One night looking at the Bay of Algiers, Louis is convinced that the world in which he has grown will disappear. The first events of the War of Independence have begun. The young boys and young girls have a good time at the seaside: swimming, dancing, flirting. But, little by little, the war becomes part of their daily life.

Makhlouf Bombardier, unusual, decides to be elected mayor of a dechra (village). So he surrounds himself with trusted partners to organize a great campaign for his election. Bombardier became the mayor of the village and is organizing an international film festival to compete at the Carthage festival. In his action, he is pursued by the Court of Auditors for embezzlement. So, his ultimate goal is to become the president.

Ayla Ki Nass

Nine people with Abdullah Le Clandestin (Illegal Taxi), in one car, on the way to Algiers.

Bab El-Oued, a popular district of Algiers, in 1989, a few months after the riots. Boualem works at night in a bakery and steals the loudspeaker that was installed on his roof and was broadcasting the Imam's word... therefore preventing him from sleeping. This blunder is taken as a pretext by the Islamists to put the district under their control...

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...

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...

Omar, a young man, lives a simple life with his family and suffers from loneliness. His life changes when he tries to bond with a girl he barely knows.

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.

Hassan Taxi

The story of Algerian women trying to live in 1970s Algeria where the society is between conservative values and progressive modern Algeria.