Bab El Oued City

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...

أحلام (Ahlam)

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…

Chronique De Mon Village

In 1960, nine-year-old Bachir dreamed of becoming the son of a martyr because he had heard that the children of martyrs would obtain everything after independence. He sets up a whole plan to get rid of a certain François, enemy of his country, while his father, Saddek, abandoned him with his mother and brothers. Through this fiction, the film looks at the life and visions of little Algerians during the War of National Liberation. Karim Traïdia looks back on his own childhood during the Algerian war (1945-1962). On a humorous note, it tells the adventures of a young child and his innocent friends against the backdrop of a raging merciless war.

Étoile aux dents ou Poulou le magnifique

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.

كرنفال في دشرة

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.

عائلة كي الناس

الطاكسي المخفي

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

Rue des Figuiers

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

الولف صعيب - El Ouelf Essaïb

El Ouelf Essaïb (الولف صعيب) is a comedy written and directed by Mohamed Hilmi, released in 1990. An Algerian music composer and his friends live a thrilling story, full of twists and turns.

Le harem de Mme Osmane

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.

Les Vacances de l'apprenti

L'inspecteur Tahar marque le but

Scream

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.

Les Chats

حسان طاكسي

Machaho

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.

Al-Khutwat Al-Ula

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 ?

De Hollywood à Tamanrasset

On the outskirts of Algiers, Algeria. the arrival of the satellite dishes governs the lives of the inhabitants. Dissatisfied with their lives, they think of themselves as the heroes of American soap opera and movies, so JR, Sue Ellen, Rambo, Kojak, Spock and others take possession of bodies and minds, with many typical American culture elements. These heroes mix in a beautiful funny mess, with tradition and modernism, Islam and television, reality and fiction.

Tahia Ya Didou !

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.

Les Bonnes Familles

Directed by Djafar Damardji.