Miloud Khetib

In 1955, a year after the birth of the National Liberation Front (FLN), Mahmoud was expelled from Algeria by the colonial authorities who feared his revolutionary speeches. At the age of 27, he arrived in the Algerian slum of Nanterre. Roughly questioned by FLN activists, in disagreement with the Algerian Nationalist Movement (MNA) who wanted to recognize theirs, he was then accepted as the local hairdresser and shoemaker. Subsequently, he became a driver during anti-MNA expeditions. Accepting increasingly dangerous missions, he is imprisoned by the French police and once again undergoes interrogations and special treatment by the police which will definitively undermine his sanity. One day, he no longer recognized his companions, and when joy broke out among the FLN militants, at the announcement of the signing of the Evian Accords, Mahmoud remained alone, frozen in an attitude of refusal, walled in his madness. Algeria has just won its independence.

An Algerian man's life-long dream finally comes true when he receives an invitation to take his cow Jacqueline to the Paris International Agriculture Fair.

Farid, a young 26-year-old Frenchman, must travel to Algeria to save his father's house. While discovering this country in which he had never before set foot, he succumbs to the charms of a host of astonishing characters whose humour and simplicity affect him deeply. Amongst these is his cousin, a bright and lively young man who has the dream of one day going to France...

In a soup kitchen, the recipients take turns mocking and supporting, lying and loving each other, spicing up the reality of their lives with a pinch of fantasy. Inspired by director Marie-Ève Signeyrole's real-life experience volunteering in a soup kitchen around Christmas, La Soupe Pop invites its audience to share a bowl of soup among the actors and singers on Montpellier's Opera Comédie stage. Halfway between theatre and cabaret, the immersive experience unfolds in a series of raw yet poetic scenes accompanied by the joyously melancholy music of British cult band The Tiger Lillies.

In the civil war that tore apart Algeria in the 1990s, police chief Brahim Llob hunts down Islamist extremists on a daily basis. Having become the favorite target for them, it is with fear that he goes every morning to his office at the Central Commissariat of Algiers. Annoyed by the power in place, preparing to publish a whistle-blower book, Morituri, Llob is obliged to take early retirement.

In a working-class immigrant neighborhood slated for demolition, Jo, the son of Ali, known as the Rescuer from the Algerian war, lives idle and delinquent, committing small assaults to pay for his drugs. One day, while attacking Slim's bar, he is arrested by Ben, a young beur cop torn between his roots and the imperatives of his mission to maintain public order. Giving in to the respect and friendship he feels for Ali, Ben agrees to release his son. But alas, far from calming down, Jo drifts deeper into violence, until the inevitable drama.

Mehdi is an algérien writer that fundamentalist violence has transformed into a potential target. How to live with fear when everything is fear. But also life. Facing Mehdi is Ania, an algerian-born Frenchwoman, the woman next door. She often appears at her window on the court. A disturbing vis-à-vis. Ania will unceasingly try to convert this man to the culture of life, to burning passion. By bringing him tea regularly, risking to often find the door closed...

A staging of Paul Claudel's play "The Satin Slipper" by Olivier Py.