Adila Bendimerad

Still Burning tells the unexpected reunion in Paris in June 1998 of André, a Lebanese filmmaker living and working in France, and Walid, the very close friend he has not seen for years. In their youth, in Beirut, during the civil war, they were both possessed by the same artistic vocation: Cinema, but also by the same woman: Amira. Their reunion, all night long, will not fail to awaken their old repressed demons for better or for worse.

1516, Legend has it that the king of Algiers had a wife named Zaphira. When the pirate Aroudj Barbarossa arrives to liberate the city from the Spaniards, he is determined to conquer Zaphira as well as the kingdom itself. But is Zaphira willing to let him, or is she plotting for herself?

After the December riots and the first peaceful marches in Algeria, while the Arab Spring begins in Tunisia and Egypt, Fouzi wants to gather his actors to show them the unfinished editing of the film he made two years ago on the illusion of a young man who seeks to express his artistic ideas. He seeks another point of view, especially an end, and he relies on the reactions of the actors to invent a new resolution of his history, in a country suddenly raised by a wave of disputes. During the projection of the film, the debate takes place: what is the place of art creation in Algeria today? How to create something without confronting censorship? How to resist ? By making movies or walking in streets towards a new revolution? Two stories intertwine, fiction and reality? A new vision of the Algerian youth of today in full political and artistic questioning.

Two parallel stories. In the present day, the disciple of an old Raqi (a Muslim exorcist) fears that his master’s dementia will unleash evil. In 1992, after a car accident that left him with amnesia, Ahmed returns to his village, where nothing seems familiar to him: neither his wife nor his children. His youngest son, frightened by Ahmed’s bandaged face, is deeply afraid of him.

In the infirmary of a strange underwater trawler, a human surgeon treats a crew entirely composed of android slaves.

Algeria region of the high flatlands. As Islamist groups continue to spread terror, Rashid, a young Jihadist, leaves the mountains to return to his village. In keeping with the law « of pardon and national harmony », he has to surrender to the police and give up his weapon. He thus receives amnesty and becomes a « repenti ». But the law cannot erase his crimes and for Rachid it's the beginning of a one-way journey of violence, secrets and manipulation.

Malek, in his forties, single, has just moved to Montmartre and will soon welcome his nephew Ryiad, who has just arrived from Algeria, into his home. Together they discover Barbès, the neighborhood of the Algerian community, very lively, despite the current health crisis. His meetings with local figures will allow Malek to find a part of himself that he had buried, and to reconcile with his origins.