For its fourteenth edition, the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival puts Algeria in the spotlight with around fifteen films. Enough to prove that local film production, although atomized, delivers nuggets.
The case was not easy. The Angoulême Francophone Film Festival planned a tribute to Algerian cinema last year. “But the context obviously forced us to postpone what we had planned, regrets Dominique Besnehard, co-creator of the event with Marie-France Brière. We were unable to go to Algeria to prepare for this edition. We contacted his ambassador in France, but it was complicated… Even if Emmanuel Macron took a step towards reconciliation [en reconnaissant la responsabilité de la France dans le meurtre du militant Ali Boumendjel, NDLR], the situation remains delicate. What remains unspoken. We didn’t want to get into political quarrels, and at the same time, Algerian films also talk about politics. “
Unknown
Despite the context and these obstacles, the festival – which takes place from August 24 to 29 – offers a range of representative and very exciting Algerian cinema. This, thanks to the support of various institutions such as the Arab World Institute or the Algiers Cinémathèque, which, for example, lent a copy of a rare film, Nahla or the sinking city, by Farouk Beloufa (1979).
Films are often on life support
Behind the scenes, director Lyes Salem also worked as a sort of consultant. Its role was all the more important because if Algeria won a Palme d’Or at Cannes (with Chronicle of the years of embers, by Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, in 1975), his cinema remains unknown. “We could only select a few films, but I wanted them to cover the great periods of Algerian 7th art,” explains the man of the cinema.
He distinguishes four: the first films of the war for independence, often made for propaganda purposes; a second wave, more militant and social, marked by comedies, until the mid-1990s; the black decade, which saw a virtual interruption of filming; and the contemporary period, with the emergence of a new generation of directors, more societal themes, a look at Islamism, the attacks.
We measure our popularity by the number of hacks!
In view of the quantity of films produced and its international aura, Algeria remains a little Thumb compared to its neighbors in the Maghreb. “There is no Algerian cinema industry, but there is an Algerian cinema, underlines Lyes Salem, who outlines the difficulties encountered by the directors. Due to the civil war and curfew, moviegoers have lost the habit of going to theaters and only a handful remain across the country [alors qu’il en existait 450 en 1962, une dizaine seulement sont encore en activité dans la capitale aujourd’hui, NDLR]. The films, which are often co-productions with European countries and directed by filmmakers who generally have a foot outside, generally in France, are on respiratory assistance. TVs don’t buy movies to broadcast them. For a film to be seen, it must be pirated: our popularity is measured by the number of pirations! “
Generation resourceful
There is indeed a national funding tool, the Fund for the Development of Arts, Techniques and the Film Industry (Fdatic), created in 1967 to develop film production … but directors accuse it of only helping projects politically correct, and it has been threatened with deletion this year.
Faced with the lack of resources, the new generation calls for resourcefulness. And sometimes succeeds in creating small jewels. For example Their Algeria, a documentary produced in 2020 by Lina Soualem. Through a sensitive portrait of her grandparents, the young woman born in France paints that of an entire generation and its troubled relationships with the country. A coup de force despite a material reduced to the essential: a digital camera and a sound boom. Faced with this type of nugget, Lyes Salem wants to be optimistic: “Finally, the period is perhaps ideal for making a cooler, more intimate cinema, a cinema that is closer to society. “
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