Nadia Kaci

Houria

A young woman who is passionate about ballet dancing and experiences a trauma, and then she meets other women who have experienced similar situations and they find a creative way to pursue their passion.

Memoirs of a French Whore

Marie is nineteen and bored in her little suburban life with no future. In a café, she meets the charismatic and beautiful Gerard. Blinded by adoration, Mary decides to leave her parents and her clerk job to live with the man she considers as the love of her life. But Gerard is a pimp, who soon forces her into prostitution. From within homes to out on the streets, the young woman gradually discovers a world of decay and violence.

The Well

Women and children from a village in southern Algeria find themselves besieged by soldiers and can not get out the risk of dying. Gradually, these villagers are faced with thirst. At the point where soon arises for them the dilemma of choosing their death.

Les suspects

Mahfoud is a young teacher at a technical school in Algiers. Using his technical and computer skills, he refurbishes an old weaving loom that he intends to present at an international inventors’ conference in Germany. However, his travel plans are thwarted by administrative obstacles. Meanwhile, his neighbors keep a close eye on him, especially the elderly M’nouar, marked by the terrible memories of the Algerian War. He sees everything and everyone with suspicion. As far as he is concerned, Mahfoud has no good intentions—he may even be involved in subversive activities. Naturally, it does not help that Mahfoud is in a relationship with Samia, a young psychiatrist who has returned to the country after studying in Belgium. She challenges local norms and breaks taboos that unsettle those around her. In the end, Mahfoud manages to obtain a visa to attend the international fair. His invention wins a prize, and when he returns home, he receives a very different kind of welcome.

Girls from a Good Family

Three well-educated North African women cope with sexual stereotyping in modern Tunisia. Amina a married Muslim woman living in Tunis with her two daughters. Even though she is allowed certain freedoms as a Muslim woman this is curtailed when she meets her old friend from school Aida.

It All Starts Today

In a mining town which has been blighted by economic downturns, an elementary school headmaster struggles to obtain social services on behalf of his students.

7 Years

A devoted young woman becomes ensnared in a web of sexuality and betrayal in Jean-Pascal Hattu’s consistently unpredictable and finely wrought character study. A vividly realistic psychosexual drama, the film’s sharp emotional honesty heralds a distinct new voice from a promising young director. Hattu soon reveals that Maite’s husband Vincent is in prison for an unspecified crime, and that she has promised to wait for him and attend to his laundry (if not his conjugal needs) during his incarceration. On one of her weekly visits, Maite meets Jean, an oddly inquisitive and boldly flirtatious prison warden, and soon the two commence a joyless affair. Seemingly smitten with Maite, Jean, in a gesture of kindness to his lover, eases up on her husband behind bars; the two become pals and even engage in some homoerotic shower talk. —Robert O’Shaughnessy

Papicha

Nedjma, an 18-year-old student passionate about fashion design refuses to let the tragic events of the Algerian Civil War keep her from experiencing a normal life. As the social climate becomes more conservative, she rejects the new bans set by the radicals and decides to put on a fashion show.

Houria

A young woman who is passionate about ballet dancing and experiences a trauma, and then she meets other women who have experienced similar situations and they find a creative way to pursue their passion.

Memoirs of a French Whore

Marie is nineteen and bored in her little suburban life with no future. In a café, she meets the charismatic and beautiful Gerard. Blinded by adoration, Mary decides to leave her parents and her clerk job to live with the man she considers as the love of her life. But Gerard is a pimp, who soon forces her into prostitution. From within homes to out on the streets, the young woman gradually discovers a world of decay and violence.

The Well

Women and children from a village in southern Algeria find themselves besieged by soldiers and can not get out the risk of dying. Gradually, these villagers are faced with thirst. At the point where soon arises for them the dilemma of choosing their death.

Les suspects

Mahfoud is a young teacher at a technical school in Algiers. Using his technical and computer skills, he refurbishes an old weaving loom that he intends to present at an international inventors’ conference in Germany. However, his travel plans are thwarted by administrative obstacles. Meanwhile, his neighbors keep a close eye on him, especially the elderly M’nouar, marked by the terrible memories of the Algerian War. He sees everything and everyone with suspicion. As far as he is concerned, Mahfoud has no good intentions—he may even be involved in subversive activities. Naturally, it does not help that Mahfoud is in a relationship with Samia, a young psychiatrist who has returned to the country after studying in Belgium. She challenges local norms and breaks taboos that unsettle those around her. In the end, Mahfoud manages to obtain a visa to attend the international fair. His invention wins a prize, and when he returns home, he receives a very different kind of welcome.

Girls from a Good Family

Three well-educated North African women cope with sexual stereotyping in modern Tunisia. Amina a married Muslim woman living in Tunis with her two daughters. Even though she is allowed certain freedoms as a Muslim woman this is curtailed when she meets her old friend from school Aida.

It All Starts Today

In a mining town which has been blighted by economic downturns, an elementary school headmaster struggles to obtain social services on behalf of his students.

7 Years

A devoted young woman becomes ensnared in a web of sexuality and betrayal in Jean-Pascal Hattu’s consistently unpredictable and finely wrought character study. A vividly realistic psychosexual drama, the film’s sharp emotional honesty heralds a distinct new voice from a promising young director. Hattu soon reveals that Maite’s husband Vincent is in prison for an unspecified crime, and that she has promised to wait for him and attend to his laundry (if not his conjugal needs) during his incarceration. On one of her weekly visits, Maite meets Jean, an oddly inquisitive and boldly flirtatious prison warden, and soon the two commence a joyless affair. Seemingly smitten with Maite, Jean, in a gesture of kindness to his lover, eases up on her husband behind bars; the two become pals and even engage in some homoerotic shower talk. —Robert O’Shaughnessy

Papicha

Nedjma, an 18-year-old student passionate about fashion design refuses to let the tragic events of the Algerian Civil War keep her from experiencing a normal life. As the social climate becomes more conservative, she rejects the new bans set by the radicals and decides to put on a fashion show.

Nationale 7

In a nursing home for disabled near Toulon, René is unanimously hated by all. With fifty years and suffering from myopathy, has an irascible, rebellious character. But not resist provocations candor and uprightness of Julie, a special educator rookie. He confesses he wants to make love to a woman before her degenerative disease definitely catch it. Then Julie goes after one of the prostitutes who work in caravans along the N7.

L'Affaire Ben Barka

Lola Pater

When his mother dies, Zino decides to look for his father, Farid. But twenty-five years ago, Farid became Lola.

Délice Paloma

Atop 17 flights of stairs, Madame Aldjeria rules over a crew of beautiful young women with the help of faithful son Riyad and clever lawyer Djaffar. Madame Aldjeria can set up a lonely old man with companionship or destroy the reputation of whomever the client wants humiliated. But when Riyad grows attracted to a beautiful new girl, Paloma, and a potentially huge new project runs into trouble, Aldjeria could lose everything she's worked for.

Divertimento

Zahia Ziouani, 17, dreams of becoming a conductor, while her twin sister Fettouma hopes to be a professional cellist. They want to make classical music accessible to everyone and create their own orchestra.

The Vanishing

Reda seemingly has a life of privilege in Algiers, in his late twenties still living at the family home, with a father who has arranged a job and a fiancée. Reda is eager to please, yet the more he tries the more he veers off course.

I Still Hide to Smoke

Α tragi-comedy about 9 women of different ages and various backgrounds that gather in an Algerian hammam to talk about their lives.

The Blessed

Algiers, a few years after the civil war. Amal and Samir have decided to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary in a restaurant. While on their way, their share their views on Algeria: Amal talks about lost illusions and Samir about the necessity to cope with them. At the same time, their son Fahim and his friends Feriel and Reda are wandering about in a hostile Algiers about to steal their youth.

Bab El Oued City

Bab El-Oued, a popular district of Algiers, in 1989, a few months after the riots. Boualem works at night in a bakery and steals the loudspeaker that was installed on his roof and was broadcasting the Imam's word... therefore preventing him from sleeping. This blunder is taken as a pretext by the Islamists to put the district under their control...

The Harem of Madame Osmane

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.

Until The Birds Return

Algeria today. Past and present collide in the lives of a newly wealthy property developer, a young woman torn between the path of reason and sentiment and an ambitious neurologist impeded by wartime wrongdoings. Three stories that plunge us into the human soul of a contemporary Arab society.

Viva Algeria

This movie portrays three women living in today's Algeria between modern society and Islamic fundamentalism, self-determination and dependence. Goucem, a young woman who works for a photographer and mistress of a rich doctor, her mother Papicha, a former cabaret star, and her best friend Fifi, a prostitute, all live in a hotel in the city center of Algiers. Their difficult personal situation and the growing influence of Islam lead to dramatic consequences...

Douce France

In this French comedy, the young adult children of working-class Arab immigrants living in the projects of suburban Paris endeavor to find a suitable cultural identity. The story centers on four young men in their 20s: Farida, who tries to live according to family traditions; his rebellious sister Souad, who wants to be as Westernized as possible and works at a fast-food outlet; her ex-boyfriend, Jean Luc, who wants to be an immigrant lawyer; and his friend Moussa. The film is comprised of brief incidents from their lives.

The Passenger

On the train between Algiers and Constantine, Kamal crosses paths with a young girl. Between fleeting moments and shared moments, a friendship is forged, carried by tenderness and escapades throughout Algeria. The journey then becomes a mirror of the heart's impulses, but distance becomes an obstacle when it comes to declaring one's feelings and imagining a future together.

Miskina, Poor Thing