Sidonie Panache
★ 8.5 · 1934 · 120m · Comedy
In 1842, during the conquest of Algeria Sidonie Panache disguised as a Soave runs away with her lover who is doing his military service there.
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From Hollywood to Tamanrasset
1990 · ★ 7.8
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.
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Tahia Ya Didou !
1971 · ★ 8
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.
More info →The Good Families
1973 · ★ 10
The film dialectically explores the phenomena of family alliances in urban and rural areas, technocracy, and the Algerian landed bourgeoisie. The film was completed but apparently never distributed by the ONCIC.
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Inspector Tahar's Holiday
1972 · ★ 8.7
Inspector Tahar and his apprentice are invited by Mama Traki, a popular Tunisian heroine, to spend their vacation in Tunis. Before leaving Algiers, they stop at a tourist complex where a murder has just been committed. The investigation full of surprises and twists and turns will take them to Tunis where they will find Ommi Traki and his family...
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Take Your Ten Thousand Francs and Get Out
1981 · ★ 9.7
In 1980, Lionel Stoléru—France’s Secretary of State for Migrant Workers—introduced a "repatriation grant" of 10,000 francs (known as the "Stoléru million"), paid to immigrants who agreed to return permanently to their countries of origin. One Algerian family decided to leave France. Upon arriving in the small rural town of Boufarik, Algeria, in a brand-new Peugeot 404, they caused a scandal. Their liberated ways drew the villagers' ire, and the two children knew nothing about Algeria or local customs. The film was selected for the Cannes Film Festival in 1981, and in 1982, it won the Critics' Prize at the Chamrousse International Comedy Film Festival.
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The Adventures of a Hero
1979 · ★ 10
In one of the tribes of the Algerian Sahara, everyone awaits the arrival of the hero who will defend the rights of the poor. A man decides one day to put the mark of the "hero" on his newborn son and the whole tribe celebrates the arrival of this eagerly awaited messiah who came to save them. This false hero then grows up by assuming his role of savior. Filled with cynicism, he crosses the countryside and has a number of adventures.
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The Honour of the Tribe
1993 · ★ 9
Like every year in Zitouna, a bear handler passes by. With his creature, he comes to challenge the small community. And like every year, it is Slimane El Mabrouk who defends the honor of the tribe. But this time, he dies, leaving two orphans, Omar and Ourida. Robbed of their inheritance, the children will grow up alone. The years pass, the French army settles in, and with it, the war. Mysteriously, one day, after the murder of a French legionnaire, Omar disappears into the bush, while his sister dies in childbirth. Omar will return to the village, much later, once independence has been acquired, as a representative of power and with this enigmatic formula: "You must know that the Revolution has not forgotten you". Personal revenge? Sincere desire to bring progress and modernity? ... The inhabitants of Zitouna, upset in their ancestral way of life, will not be long in having an answer to their questions.
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Crazy About Music
1967 · ★ 10
Fous de Musique by Jean-Charles Carlus (1957) is a musical comedy featuring Rouiched, Mahieddine Bentir and the famous Bendaoud orchestra. Shot during the Algerian War, the film was not released until after independence and was probably shown in Paris in cinemas intended for immigrant workers around 1967. Sources: Archives Numériques du Cinéma Algérien
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Hassan Terro au Maquis
1978 · ★ 10
While trying by all means to stay out of the bloody turmoil caused by the Battle of Algiers, Hassan, an honest and naive family man, is wrongfully accused of terrorism by the French colonial army in "Hassan Terro." After escaping in "The Escape of Hassan Terro," Hassan is forced to join the resistance in "Hassan Terro in the Maquis."
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El Ghoula
1972 · ★ 10
An adaptation of the satirical play of the same name by comedian Rouïched (Ahmed Ayad). "El-Ghoula" (The Vampire) tells the story of a corrupt official who lives off the peasants of an agricultural cooperative. Instead of solving problems, this official manipulates empty rhetoric and "revolutionary" slogans to galvanize them and encourage them to continue working. Opportunistic, he will transform the fellahs' work into chaotic bureaucratic procedures for his own personal gain.
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Ali in Wonderland
1980 · ★ 9.5
In the 1980s, barely 18 years after Algeria's independence, Algerian immigration to France massively fueled the construction industry, responding to a demand for hard, undervalued labor. Behind the idea of "selective immigration," these men were recruited primarily for their bras and their knock-kneed hands, shaped by construction sites. Invisible yet essential, they built roads, buildings, and infrastructure, often at the cost of precarious conditions. Ali, an Algerian crane operator in France, philosophically accepts the harassment faced by immigrants like himself on construction sites and in daily life. He hopes to escape his situation with the money he wins in the lottery, and from the top of his crane, he allows himself to dream, observing the world through binoculars. One day, the jackpot falls...
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