The Empire of Dreams

Far from Men

January 2015 •French

A French teacher in a small Algerian village during the Algerian War forms an unexpected bond with a dissident who is ordered to be turned in to the authorities.

The Outlaws

January 1969 •French

In prison in colonial Algeria, shortly after the end of the Second World War, three indigenous cellmates make out. Once free, they attack the authority represented by the triad of the boss, the gendarme and the administrator. “Living the colonial condition,” confided Tewfik Farès, “is something! It’s not sociologically or historically speaking. It’s life. And I think that’s all there in it. [...] For a hundred and thirty years, we wait. We hold back. We push back. We hope. At the same time, on different occasions, there are skirmishes, unrest.

Dawn of the Damned

July 1965 •French

This excellent feature-length documentary - the story of the imperialist colonization of Africa - is a film about death. Its most shocking sequences derive from the captured French film archives in Algeria containing - unbelievably - masses of French-shot documentary footage of their tortures, massacres and executions of Algerians. The real death of children, passers-by, resistance fighters, one after the other, becomes unbearable. Rather than be blatant propaganda, the film convinces entirely by its visual evidence, constituting an object lesson for revolutionary cinema.

Dark Night, October 17, 1961

June 2005 •French

Parisian authorities clash with the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) in director Alain Tasma’s recounting of one of the darkest moments of the Algerian War of Independence. As the war wound to a close and violence persisted in the streets of Paris, the FLN and its supporters adopted the tactic of murdering French policemen in hopes of forcing a withdrawal. When French law enforcement retaliated by brutalizing Algerians and imposing a strict curfew, the FLN organizes a peaceful demonstration that drew over 11,000 supporters, resulting in an order from the Paris police chief to take brutal countermeasures. Told through the eyes of both French policemen as well as Algerian protestors, Tasma’s film attempts to get to the root of the tragedy by presenting both sides of the story.

The Charcoal Maker

January 1973 •Arabic

Film describes the miserable existence of a charcoal-burner who is barely able to feed his family. His search for work in town ends in failure and he is forced to return to his village.

The Forgotten Hill

May 1996 •Arabic

At the outbreak of the Second World War, two friends, Mokrane and Menach, abruptly interrupt their studies and return to their remote native Kabylian village of Tagsa. While waiting to be drafted into the French Army they have time to woo. Mokrane falls for beautiful Aazi and soon marries her only to find out that she can bear no child. Menach, on his part, is stongly attracted to Davda, but the latter is already married to a rich merchant...Happiness does not seem to be in store for the two former students...

Machaho

January 1995 •Arabic

In Kabylie, rude mountain region in the north of Algeria. Arezki finds the young Larbi exhausted, buried under the snow. He takes him in and nurses him until he's recovered. The host seduces Arezki's daughter. She is pregnant. This is an unsupportable shame to the father of the female sinner. Arezki claims vengeance. He leaves his house and takes the oath not to come back before having killed Larbi who betrayed him under his own roof.

Baya's Mountain

December 1997 •Arabic

Set in the 1800s among the Berbers of North Africa, this 1997 Algerian feature concerns a noble widow who receives a customary purse of gold coins from the enemy tribe that murdered her husband; the gift puts her in conflict with her kinsmen, who want the money to buy back land taken by the enemy in cahoots with French colonials.

Saha Dahmane

January 1980 •Arabic

Film about Dahmane El Harrachi, musician, singer and composer of the famous song "Ya Rayah", a cult song covered by Rachid Taha, which will enjoy international success. Virtuoso of the banjo, the work of Dahmane El Harrachi did not initially respond to the canons of the purists of Algiers Chaâbi song. However, he will end up establishing himself alongside great masters of the genre, El Hadj M'hamed El Anka, Boudjemaâ El Ankis, El Hachemi Guerouabi, Amar Ezzahi... He plays his own role in this film shot with his musician friends, just before his tragic death in 1980 in a car accident on the Corniche of Algiers.

Song of Autumn

January 1983 •Arabic

Chants d’Automne (Song of Autumn), is a story of daily life on a colonial farm, at the start of the war of liberation in Algeria, describing individual and group behavior in this context. An unthinkable, even dangerous, romantic relationship, born in this context between Catherine, daughter of a settler, and Abdelmalek, son of a blacksmith. Managing his vast property in a feudal manner, Monsieur Marcel whose only ambition is his personal enrichment to the detriment of the community. Everyone fears his authority except his daughter Catherine, a student in France, who returns home during the holidays. She does not stop herself from expressing to him her ideas of justice which go against family and colonial practices. Catherine and Abdelmalek's romance makes relationships increasingly strained, but the call for freedom will be stronger than a woman's love.

Fanon

December 2024 •French

Frantz Fanon, a French psychiatrist from Martinique, has just been appointed head of department at the psychiatric hospital in Blida, Algeria. His methods contrast with those of the other doctors in a context of colonization. A biopic in the heart of the Algerian war where a fight is waged in the name of Humanity.

The King of Algiers

May 2023 •French

Omar, better known as Omar the Strawberry, is an old-fashioned bandit. Forced to flee to Algeria, he makes a living out of petty crime, accompanied by his famous sidekick Roger. After decades of ruling the French criminal underworld, they must come to terms with their new life together, which until now has been one of debauchery and violence.

End of Trip, Sahara

October 2024 •Spanish

In the 1970s, groups of young Europeans ventured into the Sahara Desert with the intention of crossing it and experiencing “an adventure”. Unprepared, reckless and ignorant of the terrain they were crossing, they faced extreme situations with unexpected consequences. From the passion of these young people for adventure, the most famous rally in the world was born. “End of the Journey, Sahara” tells the story of one of these adventures.

Enough!

September 2006 •Arabic

Set amidst the civil war of Algeria in the 1990s, Enough! is the story of two women. Emel is a Westerner whose husband, a journalist, is missing - perhaps kidnapped or even killed for articles he's written.

Ikach

January 1937 •French

Ikach, is a farce in two acts in popular Arabic, written by André Sarrouy and adapted and directed by himself. A critique of marriage in colonial Algeria at a time when women were little taken into account. Cunning of women and stupidity of husbands, on an original soundtrack composed by Mohamed Iguerbouchène.

Kaddour à Paris

January 1938 •French

The Unexpected Party

January 1953 •Arabic

This musical comedy produced in 1953 for the General Government of Algeria, features the comic trio composed of Rouiched, Mohamed Touri and Sid Ali Fernandel, accompanied by the orchestra of the master of the Algiers Chaâbi El Hadj M'hamed El Anka, the singer Fadhéla Dziria, Mustapha Skandrani on the piano. Some scenes were filmed at the Summer Palace (the current Palace of the Algerian Presidency, called the People's Palace). André Zwobada, the director, will play an important role after the independence of Algeria in 1962, in the production and preservation of the first Algerian newsreels.

Wind from the South

January 1975 •Arabic

Néfissa, a student in Algiers, returns to her village in the south in the summer. Her father wants her to marry the mayor but she wants to continue her studies. Confronting her father and the opinion of the villagers who do not understand her, she decides to flee to Algiers. The shepherd Rabah discovering her wounded and lost in the mountains, has her treated by her mother. In contact with Nefissa, Rabat becomes aware of his exploited condition and discovers the possibilities offered to him by the cooperatives of the agrarian revolution. The two young people will go through the decisive stage together which will allow them to escape obscurantism and exploitation. Based on the novel "Le vent du sud" by Abdelhamid Benahouga

Pépé le Moko

January 1937 •French

Pépé le Moko, one of France's most wanted criminals, hides out in the Casbah section of Algiers. He knows police will be waiting for him if he tries to leave the city. When Pépé meets Gaby, a gorgeous woman from Paris who is lost in the Casbah, he falls for her.

The Harem of Madame Osmane

July 2000 •French

In Algiers in 1993, while the civil war is starting, Mrs Osmane's tenants have to endure her bad temper. Her husband left her and the fear to lose her respectability haunt her. The former member of the Resistance during the Independence War persists in controlling the slightest moves of the households rather than struggle against her own frustrations. Learning her daughter is in love, the possibility of finding herself alone will push her to the limit: The symbolical Mrs Osmane "harem" is about to collapse.