Elise, or Real Life

In the middle of the Algerian war, Elise, from Bordeaux, “goes” to Paris to join her brother to earn her living in an automobile factory. There she meets Arezki, an Algerian nationalist activist with whom she falls in love. A chronicle of working life at the time and which highlights the extent of police repression against Algerians.

The Refusal

In 1971, the Algerian government nationalized hydrocarbons. The consequences of this decision on the community of Algerians in France are numerous. The Galti family is prey to these economic problems. The father, Khaled, former member of the F.L.N. in France, does not escape the sentence. Sharazade, his wife and comrade in combat, finds herself torn between her role as wife, mother and nostalgia for a country and a bygone past. As for his son Karim, a victim of socio-cultural division, all he has left is refusal.

A Finger in the Works

Le Doigt Dans L'Engrenage is a film by Ahmed Rachedi, written by Rachid Boudjedra mixing fiction, filmed documents and interviews which recounts the arrival in Paris of an Algerian immigrant lost in the metro. On December 27, 1968, France and Algeria signed an agreement which admitted each year 35,000 Algerian workers to French territory in the France of the Trente Glorieuses where the annual growth rate reached 5% and where factories lacked workers. Candidates obtain a residence permit valid for 5 years for themselves and their families. Paris is committed to improving professional training and housing conditions for immigrants, too often confined to the most thankless jobs and often housed in slums. A testimony on the living conditions of emigrant workers "economic cannon fodder" of neocolonialism which simultaneously develops its alter ego, institutionalized racism, as a tool of social stagnation and division of the proletarian class.

Mektoub

Ahmed, an Algerian laborer and young father, leaves his country and arrives in France, hoping to find a job through Salah, a friend who has been living in the Paris suburbs for several years. He is disappointed when he arrives in Nanterre, where Salah lives in a shantytown. Without any support, Ahmed has to make the daily rounds of the employment offices, like so many other immigrants who, like him, have been lulled into complacency.

Rome Rather Than You

"For more than ten years, Algeria has been living a slow war, a war without a front line but having caused more than 100,000 deaths. It is this desert that Zina and Kamel – two young Algerians sometimes hallucinated and joyful, sometimes dejected and serene – will want to travel one last time before leaving it for elsewhere. Road Movie on the territories of a city, Algiers whose construction sites are in decline. Roma wa la n'touma will show that fleeing abroad is not is not a refusal of combat, but an obscure struggle against assignment. Tariq Teguia

Guerre sans images - Algérie, je sais que tu sais

The Director Mohammed Soudani comes back to Algeria after 30 years with the photographer Michael von Graffenried to visit the Algerians he had photographed between 1991 and 2000 without them knowing it.

Cheikh El Hasnaoui, from the White House to the Blue Ocean

Cheikh El-Hasnaoui is an Algerian singer who left his country in 1937 without ever setting foot there again. Between 1939 and 1968 he composed most of his repertoire in France. For many years the Algerian cafes of Paris were the stages of his shows. With a handful of artists of his generation, he laid the foundations of modern Algerian song. A fervent defender of women's rights, he claims, as a pioneer, the fight for identity for a plural Algeria. At the end of the Sixties, he ended his artistic career. On July 6, 2002 he died in Saint-Pierre de la Réunion, where he is buried to this day. This 80-minute documentary follows in the footsteps of this extraordinary character. From Kabylia to Saint-Pierre de a Réunion via the Casbah of Algiers and the belly of Paris.

Toute l'Algérie du monde

The largest country in the Arab world and a producer of hydrocarbons, Algeria has everything it needs to weigh on the international scene. But Africa's second military power seems undermined by its internal problems. While the Bouteflika regime has fallen and the popular “hirak” movement has shown that the people are ready to enter a more democratic era, the country appears as a colossus with feet of clay, which has failed enhance their independence. How did this isolation come about? From the “dark decade” of terrorism to the fall of Bouteflika, via 9/11 or the Arab revolutions, this documentary sheds light on Algerian foreign policy in recent decades, while deciphering the strategy of Western powers towards it.

Les Ajoncs

An unemployed Algerian worker leaves Paris by hitchhiking. He soon found himself in Brittany and, seduced by the beauty of wild gorse, eventually established himself as a gorse merchant. But for problems with parking his little cart, he had a rough explanation with a law enforcement officer. The happy intervention of factory workers, the eager kindness they showed him, saved him from despair. This film is part of a trilogy "Them And Us" with the films "Les 3 Cousins" and "Techniquement Si Simple".

Ma famille entre deux terres

The Revolution Of El Harrachi

The artistic journey of Dahmane El Harrachi, born in 1925 in Algiers, bears the mark of his experience. An attentive and vigilant observer of the environment of immigrant workers, Dahmane has always avoided falling into the ambient miserabilism. From the Algerian Chaâbi, he has kept certain melodic lines and a clear propensity for sayings drawn from the oral poetic tradition. El Harrachi uses simple language, understandable by all popular sectors of the Maghreb, which partly explains its wide success. In 1949, he went to France and it was in cafes, springboard places where people come to breathe the air of the country, that he performed regularly. Elegant, with his beautiful atmosphere, the “bluesman” of the suburbs seduces, upsets and stirs consciences. Discovered late by the new generation, the creator of Ya Rayah met a tragic end, on August 31, 1980, in a car accident, on the Algiers coast which he sublimated above all else.

Northern Skies Over Empty Space

Don Reynaldo is a renowned hunter in decline. When the threat of losing his heritage and his father's legacy appears, the dynamics with his family, his workers and the land will be dangerously disrupted.

The Line

Margaret, 35, has a history of violent behaviour which has cost her a romantic relationship. She has moved back in with her mother Christina, a fragile, immature 55-year-old woman who blames Margaret, her firstborn, for ruining her dreams of a career as a concert pianist. In a state of unbridled fury during an argument, Margaret hits Christina. The law steps in, further complicating family dynamics. As she awaits trial, Margaret is forbidden from coming into contact with her mother or within 100 metres of their home. This only intensifies her desire to be closer to her family. Every day, Margaret appears at this 100-metre threshold to see her 12-year-old sister Marion and give her music lessons.

Fireside Chats

In the midst of the Great Depression, a Mother and Father fear over what could happen next after the Banking Crisis of 1933.

The Spirit of Good

When chorus girl Nell Gordon (Madlaine Traverse) is betrayed by a married man, she becomes hard and bitter. Eventually, she drifts from New York to the decadent Western town of Gehenna where she's the star of the cabaret.

Milo

Liz is moving out of her ex-boyfriend's apartment, and she's taking the dog with her.