Harvest of Steel

An old man about to die gives all his fortune to a young beggar he meets in an Arabian town. He takes him to his house (now the poor man's property) and he strongly advises him not to open one of the doors, the seventh door. "I could throw the key into the sea" says the young lad" No use, you'd dive to get it back". The young man is curious and he cannot resist temptation: he opens the forbidden door. A strange world is waiting for him where a girl, Leila, will be his guide .

Tracing the struggle of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale to gain freedom from French colonial rule as seen through the eyes of Ali from his start as a petty thief to his rise to prominence in the organisation and capture by the French in 1957. The film traces the rebels' struggle and the increasingly extreme measures taken by the French government to quell the revolt.

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...

On an Algerian beach, kids splash about, sleep, squabble - and then suddenly go to war. And it’s neither Lord of the Flies nor La Guerre des boutons. In her first film, full of grace, Narimane Mari films this childish freefor- all closely, at the irregular pace of an imagination inspired by the highest form of reality, national History — actually, nothing less than the Algerian War of Independence. When their make-believe induces a general upheaval, we follow the flock of children as they stamp their feet up the stairs, invade houses, cross village squares, in a whirlwind of shouts and empty words. Time is stretched like in a dream, through a choreography of belligerent shadows or the night-time explosion of the cemetery, as so many warning signs of dangers to come.

The Oath, a TV film produced by Algerian television in 1963 following the end of the war of independence, tells the story of young Algerians who joined the resistance after the bloody repressions of May 1945 in Constantinois by the French colonial army .

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 a small town in Spanish Morocco, old Ricardo, who runs a café, lives with his daughter, Conchita. She believes that Ricardo is her father. In reality, he took her in at the age of eighteen months in a douar abandoned during the conquest. One day a Berber chief, Tamar, sees Conchita, tells her that she is from his tribe and wants to take her away. She rejects it, then accepts later to find that Muslim civilization is incompatible with the Christian training she received. She escapes and succeeds in obtaining forgiveness from Tamar. A French officer from the Intelligence Service offers to collect it.

An ensemble piece set in a North African neighbourhood in Toulon.

Maria-Pilar is the new wife of an Algerian gangster whom the police have just arrested. The son of a first marriage arrives in Algiers from which he has remained far away for a long time. His stepmother, charmed by the teenager, gradually experiences a devouring passion, against which Michel tries in vain to fight: he loves a young girl, Sylvie. Mad with jealousy, his stepmother singles him out for his father's vengeance by distorting the truth. Michel does not escape his father's fury, but when the woman's deception becomes known, Maria-Pilar is strangled to death.

Pépé le Moko, one of France's most wanted criminals, hides out in the Casbah section of Algiers. He knows police will be waiting for him if he tries to leave the city. When Pépé meets Gaby, a gorgeous woman from Paris who is lost in the Casbah, he falls for her.

Social drama about Algerian immigrant workers who came searching for work in France.

Two deaf and dumb children. She is the daughter of an American Oil engineer. He is the son of an Algerian farmer. They meet and manage to communicate, transcending all the cultural barriers that separate them.

“La Zerda and the songs of oblivion” (1982) is one of only two films made by the Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, with “La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua” (1977). Powerful poetic essay based on archives, in which Assia Djebar – in collaboration with the poet Malek Alloula and the composer Ahmed Essyad – deconstructs the French colonial propaganda of the Pathé-Gaumont newsreels from 1912 to 1942, to reveal the signs of revolt among the subjugated North African population. Through the reassembly of these propaganda images, Djebar recovers the history of the Zerda ceremonies, suggesting that the power and mysticism of this tradition were obliterated and erased by the predatory voyeurism of the colonial gaze. This very gaze is thus subverted and a hidden tradition of resistance and struggle is revealed, against any exoticizing and orientalist temptation.

Mimezrane

Directed by Abdelaziz Tolbi.

French drama based on the 1996 kidnapping and killing of seven monks in Algeria. A group of Trappist monks reside in the monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria, where they live in harmony with the largely muslim population. When a bloody conflict between Algeria's army and Muslim Jihadi insurgents disrupts the peace, they are forced to consider fleeing the monastery and deserting the villagers they have ministered to. In the face of deadly violence the monks wrestle with their faith and their convictions, eventually deciding to stay and help their neighbours keep the army and the insurgents at bay.

A group of refractory and pacifist Bretons is sent to Algeria. These beings confronted with the horrors of war gradually become killing machines. One of them did not accept it and deserted, taking with him an FLN prisoner who was to be executed the next day. International Critics Prize at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. Copy restored in 2012

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.

Djamel and his deaf-mute companion Karim, both of North African origin, live in the middle of the materials they collect in their suburb. One evening Djamel rescues Claude, a young student who has been raped, and falls in love with her. They share a few moments of happiness despite the jealousy of Najet, in love with Djamel. Thus, they wake up together. But this budding love is soon broken by the differences that separate Djamel and Claude. This one sees itself taking back by force the chainette which he had offered to her. Shortly after, the young Maghrebi dies, victim of racism...

In 1895, young journalist Albertine Auclair arrives in the Kabylie during a family visit. The beauty of the region seduces her but she soon learns of the struggles of the native Algerians. She hears in particular about Arezki El Bachir, who was recently sentenced to death by the colonial justice system, and decides to find out more about this extraordinary man.