International Film Festival, Rotterdam - Roma wa la n'touma /Bled Number One/Barakat!

[Al-khiyal]

Road movie about a young Algerian couple that roams suburbia and the harbour to get the passports they need to leave for Italy. Subtle and stimulating acting gets plenty of room against the bare backdrop of a threatening Algiers.

The young Kamel wants to leave Algeria and join his friends in Italy. But first he wants to persuade his girlfriend Zina to go with him and he needs to get hold of a passport. Kamel is looking for Bosco, a shady figure who allegedly helps illegal immigrants find their way to Europe. On his quest, Kamel and Zina crisscross the centre of Algiers and the deserted suburbs before finally falling into the hands of the vice squad. 'Rome rather than you' is full of painful indifference, the threat of unpredictable dangers, the limitations of a curfew. Against the background of the violence that has afflicted Algeria for more than 10 years, this feature debut expresses the fresh spirit of the country’s unknown youth culture. The urban desert, within which the young couple makes expectant yet unsuccessful trips, is stripped of any all-too-easy folklore by the jazzy soundtrack. The acting by the two protagonists is filled with original mutual tension. Their dialogues are entertaining and sparkling between threatening intertitles and short independent scenes with fundamentalists and stowaways that provide the political framework. This unusual combination of moods is not so much about the innocence of youth but primarily describes an indestructible vitality. The film is sultry and loosely shot. The lack of plot development does not get in the way anywhere. 'Rome rather than you' is as topical as it is timeless.

Screening details: International Film Festival, Rotterdam -
Roma wa la n'touma / Rome rather than you

[Al-khiyal]

Fiction as a documentary jam session. The filmmaker himself plays the leading role of a crook who is deported from France and has to return to his village in Algeria that he once left, not without reason. Filmed with musical feeling and improvisation.

The film is set in the village (bled) in northeastern Algeria where the film maker Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche was born. The director himself plays the role of Kamel, who is the protagonist in the first part of the film at least. Kamel is forced to return to his bled: he had been deported from France after serving a prison sentence. He arrives in the village as a stranger. He hardly speaks a word of the language – Berber – any more. He remains silent and observes his surroundings and looks as if he is waiting until no one is disturbed by this fellow villager with his French ways. The story is told loosely and with hardly any structure, but penetrates deeply under the skin of the Algerian question. Not structure, but rhythm and melody hold the fragments together, as in an improvised musical composition. It is not without reason that, during a documentary moment in the film, the director includes his composer while he is playing his guitar on a hilltop outside the village to depict the feelings of Kamel. Later in the film, Louisa, a cousin of Kamel, comes more to the fore. Louisa wants to be a singer, a jazz singer even. Her family is shocked, because this village has also been touched by fundamentalist Islam. Her husband leaves his far-too-worldly wife, kidnaps their son and drives Louisa to insanity. It’s only when she is admitted to a psychiatric institution that she gets an opportunity to play the role of an Algerian Billie Holiday.

Screening details: International Film Festival, Rotterdam - Bled Number One

[Al-khiyal]

In an Algeria overwhelmed by violence, a young female doctor looks for her kidnapped husband together with an older nurse. Exciting, charming and beautifully acted drama, which turns into an impressive story about powerful women in Algeria in the hands of first time filmmaker Sahraoui.

In Algeria in the 1990s, torn apart by a horrific civil war, no one is safe and terror rules, especially at night. When the young female doctor Amel takes the seriously ill boy next door to hospital one evening, she is only able to return the next morning. Her husband Murad, a journalist, has disappeared. Along with Khadidja, an older nurse, she decides to set off looking for her husband. It turns into a gruelling journey in which the women have to suffer greatly to discover the truth. On the way they are confronted with themselves and with each other. The women clearly represent two generations of Algerian women. The young Amel doesn’t remember much about the FLN, while Khadidja had contacts with the freedom fighters in the past. When the two women are captured by Islamists, the commander lets them go because he still has a debt of gratitude to Khadidja. In the end the women find Murad at a place that harrowingly reveals how a country involved in a civil war can turn acquaintances into enemies. After working as a documentary maker, in her feature debut Sahraoui does not allow herself to resort to simple dramatic interventions. 'Barakat!' is convincing partly due to the outstanding actresses, who impressively reveal the inner development of both strong women in the calm, occasionally lengthy sequences.

Screening details: International Film Festival, Rotterdam - Barakat!