El Ouelf Essaïb

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.

Abderrahim is a mechanic and singer in his spare time. One day, he receives a car to repair, driven by a very beautiful girl. It's love at first sight. They want to get married and start a family, but the girl's parents do not view this love favorably. They decide to marry their daughter to another man. Subsequently, Abderrahim became a famous singer. The loss of her love leaves the young girl in a state of silence from which only Abderrahim can break her.

An Algerian social satire that tells the story of Boujemaa, who marries a second wife in addition to his first wife, who is ill and with whom he has a son and a daughter. Living all under the same roof, the new wife imposes her authority in the house. The lives of the family members are then turned upside down.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 ?

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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…