Discoveries from Algeria World Cinema

A tragic love story reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet, set in 18th century Bhutan.

Fadila is a short film shot in the Casbah of Algiers during the Algerian War by a young French army conscript with the young Fadila Tizraoui and Djamel Bendeddouche who would become filmmakers after independence. The film depicts the friendship of two children in the streets of the Casbah and their encounter one day in December with Santa Claus... Fadila won the Grand Prix du Cinéma at the 1959 Children's Fair, was awarded a prize by the National Center for Cinematography (CNC) and was successfully exported.

A dark and poetic portrait of Algeria. A paranoid and fragmented journey from the Black Decade to contemporary times, a journey between trauma and resistance.

А young man accidentally found himself living in utopian city; so how he interact to that.

Hassan recalls the first night that Jellaz became his place of shelter. After burying his parents and two brothers, he rested his head at the foot of their graves, fell into a deep sleep, and felt his soul fly. Forty years later, Hassan is the guardian of Jellaz, stationed at the crossroads of two worlds. During the day, we follow Hassan as he greets both the dead and living as well as maintains the space as required - he gardens, builds, cleans, and helps with burial ceremonies. Sometimes he visits crowded neighborhood cafés and blends into life among the living. The injustices and misery that he witnesses outside of Jellaz intrude upon the joy and hope that he feels every day in his enchanted workspace, home, and eventually, deathbed. And then there is Sabrine. She knows what it is like to live a rough and precarious life, and she too is looking for an earthly companion. As Hassan prepares for his own life after death, he shares with us his notes on mercy, memory, and love.

Being a woman caught between these two Codes: the Family Code and my family's code. Two codes that feed off each other. Prohibitions, injunctions, rules of conduct for women dictated by men of law, family, and society. And women in all of this? Être une femme prise entre ces deux Codes : le Code de la famille et le Code de ma famille. Deux codes qui se nourrissent l’un l’autre. Des interdits, des injonctions, des règles de bonnes conduites destinées aux femmes dictées par des hommes de loi, de la famille et de la société. Et les femmes dans tout cela ?

A journey of healing

Grief, the price you pay for love

Assassin Version DZ

A journey through Algerian music, past and present, alongside a political look at Algerian society today. This documentary shows how music and musicians representing Afro-Maghrebian new tendancies, contributes to the blending and the fusion of Maghrebian and African cultures, as well as of the European and Western one. It tells about exile, about artist's feelings, about today Algeria. It shows how Maghrebian living in France express their musical culture, their roots, their traditions, mixing them up with the other cultures they meets.

A nostalgic drift through the collective memory of Algerian youth circa 2009.

Directed by Mohamed Lamine Merbah.

Louisa, in her fifties, puts up missing person posters in search of her daughter, Souad. In a few shots, Fayçal Hammoum portrays a night of wandering through the streets of Algiers. The quest of his heroine—the magnificent Djalila Kadi Hanifi, her face lined by melancholy—underlines the profound divide between the generation of independence and the Algerian youth.

When her mother forbids her from biting her nails, Sarah has to abide by new rules she doesn't understand. By taking control of her actions and other people's attitudes toward her, Sarah redefines her relationship with others and herself.

Sombrero is a 1986 crime comedy by Algerian director Rabah Bouberras, produced by ENTV. A gang smuggles precious diamonds hidden in a Mexican sombrero through customs, but the hat is stolen and passed from head to head, from one person to another, throughout the Algerian capital. Everyone sets out to find it...

Overlooking the sea, two young men contemplate what is beyond the horizon as their friends and family leave for the allure of a new life.

The story of Fatima, a young woman in her twenties who descends into delinquency and violence. Amir, a seducer and charmer, manages to manipulate Fatima and her two friends Ali and Mouhand.

The Runner is a film about endurance. It is the story of a champion long-distance runner whose journey transformed him from an athlete into the symbol of a national liberation movement. Salah Hmatou Ameidan is willing to risk his life, his career, his family and his nationality to run for a country that doesn't exist. He is from Western Sahara, officially Africa's last colony and under Moroccan occupation since 1975.

On independence, Algeria had it written into its Constitution that all revolutionary and national freedom movements could claim political asylum. lt says: “The development of Algeria’s socialism is closely connected to the freedom struggle of people in other parts of the world. lt is imperative for any revolutionary movement to support this struggle and it should never become an object of manipulation or blackmail”.

A teenager describes the painting he sees off-screen. He highlights the thoughtful nature of the person facing him. Two other young persons then engage in the same exercise. Projections and fantasies, social and cultural issues. We are in the Museum of Fine Arts of Algiers where Hassen Ferhani casts his simultaneously tender and lucid gaze.

To the west of Seriana, the world stops turning for an instant under the heat of the sun, due to a flat tyre... This film is part of the Minutes 2016 collection initiated by the GREC (Groupe de Recherches et d’Essais Cinématographiques) created in 1969 by Jean Rouch, Pierre Braunberger and Anatole Dauman to support the creation of first short films.

Portrait of Si Mohand U M'hand, an Algerian Amazigh poet from the end of the last century, whose tragic destiny was marked by wandering and revolt. Refusing all compromise, he lived in insubordination to the new order imposed by the French colonial presence in Algeria.

It is 1995. In a district in the suburbs of Algiers, 12-year-olds Samia and Nouara enjoy a happy friendship until violence suddenly appears in their life and tests their bond. With a background in documentaries, Amal Blidi creates an intense first fictional short film that uses the prism of adolescence to sensitively allude to the “Black Decade” and the end of innocence.

A short film by Ahmed Zir

On the set of his film, a neurotic filmmaker finds himself paralyzed by the production of his main scene which mimes a murder "streamed" on the networks. While his attempts to obtain a realistic scene fail and under pressure from his producer and her team, a fugitive arrives on his set. It's a miracle for the director who, seduced by the young man, propels him to the leading role in his film, thus shaking up all the established rules. From then on, the border between reality and fiction disintegrates, dragging his team but also the viewer into his psyche.

Issa, an 18 year-old boy, is sent out by an old-timer from the neighborhood to go get a soda, along the way he meets people from his hood, revealing through these simple encounters the life and humanity of his community.

Salima, an independent artist, finds a cell phone on her way. What seems like an everyday occurrence soon turns into a disturbing experience: insistent calls, a voice demanding answers, and tension that drags her into losing control of her own reality.

Creeping through the pitch black of Oran.

A writer's journey within her inner world, attempting to discover herself through poetry

The daily life and tribulations of colorful residents in the millennial popular district of the Casbah of Algiers.

When independence is declared in 1962, the minority communities of Jewish and European origin flee Algeria. Four people of Muslim ascendency searching for the truth about their own lives evoke the last decades of French colonization, the years of war, from 1955 to 1962. Hatred and friendship lead us through a hidden memory: their relationships with their Jewish and Christian neighbours. The foundational myths of the new Algeria are revisited, but will they succeed in getting to the bottom of their own legends?

Absalom, the main suspect in a homicide case, is questioned by Oscar, a confident young detective. During the interrogation, Absalom admits to having shot someone... but not the victim Oscar expected, since Absalom confesses to having killed the detective’s brother.

A short film by Oussama Kobbi.

Historical biopic that traces the life and struggle of Zighoud Youcef (1921-1956), a prominent martyr (“chahid”) of the Algerian War of Independence.

A journey through the ancient ruins of Tipasa, Algeria, and an exploration of the importance of heritage preservation.

In Algerian Novel - chapter 2, French philosopher Marie-José Mondzain reinterprets Algerian Novel - chapter 1. The film’s nested structure is a way to keep images and their symbolic load at a distance. It opens a new space of negotiation wherein new associations can be shaped. They function as a starting point for the writing of a history in movement and produce narratives which then become touchstones for a new kind of historicisation. In the second part of this second chapter, Mondzain analyses another visual material: that of the rushes recorded during the shooting of the first chapter. These rushes could have been left invisible, or rather 'unseen'- the same way some of the Algerian’s historical figures are not represented on the pictures of the kiosk. In her book, L’image peut-elle tuer? [Can the image kill?], Mondzain defines the 'unseen' as what is waiting for meaning in the community debate. The unseen would then be a sort of unexploited archive, waiting for the gaze to expand.

Short animation film.

Biography of Louisette Ighilahriz, an activist for Algerian independence who was arrested and tortured by the French army.

In this story, the young girl Ghariba sets out on a journey to find her friend Ajeeb and discover a way to cross a river guarded by a crocodile.

In the remote Algerian desert near the Malian border, 10-year-old Brahim lives peacefully with his Tuareg family, in harmony with the vast, breathtaking landscape. His quiet days end when a military drone crashes near their camp. Headquarters issues a fatal order to erase all traces — a decision that will change Brahim’s life forever.

In Annab, Algeria, farmers have lived under the shadow of terrorism for decades, clinging to their land despite constant fear. When a devastating wildfire broke out, consuming everything, they faced a new catastrophe. Annab captures this violent transformation with poetic, vérité-style visuals, without interviews or voiceovers, relying solely on spontaneous dialogue between characters and steady shots, following their rise from the ashes as they rebuild and restore life anew.

Two journalists head to the Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris, to interview young people about how often they frequent this place and what motivates them to go there.

Drawing inspiration from traditional weaving techniques, oral storytelling, and contemporary modes of production, Tiɣrist - The Threads of Exile invites reflection on textile as a language of resistance and a vessel of memory - a sensitive archive. This narrative is rooted in the migration of the artist’s family from Bouira, Algeria - a region known for its textile craftsmanship and pottery, where manual labor was accompanied by collective songs and poetry — to Roubaix, France, the former industrial capital of textiles. This displacement profoundly transformed their relationship to work, to others, and to belonging. It is part of a broader history: that of the rural exodus driven by the promise of urban life, where the pursuit of emancipation often intertwines with experiences of loss and uprooting. A symbolic resonance emerges as well, since Roubaix is an anagram of Bouira, differing by only one letter.

In Smara refugee camp, barber Mohammed treats customers of different generations.