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Wednesday 17th @ 4.30pm | Kino Cinema |
Born in Algiers, Merzak Allouache grew up during the Algerian struggle for independence. He studied filmmaking at Paris’ celebrated IDHEC. He has received much acclaim and accolades for his films dealing with Algerian life and that of the diaspora living in France. Omar Gatlato (1976), his first feature film, set in the neighbourhood of Bab El-Oued in Algiers, was such a success that it changed the course of Algerian cinema, winning the International Critics’ Prize at Cannes in 1994, as well as the Grand Prix at the Arab Film Festival in Paris. During a career that has spanned thirty years, Merzak Allouache’s films have examined the complex social and political history of Algeria and France, with intelligent, tangible characters and situations. He has just completed shooting on his latest film ‘Tamanrasset’ for Arte.
His output of ten features in under thirty years makes him the most prolific filmmaker to stem from the Maghreb - Roy Armes, African Filmmaking North and South of the Sahara (2005)
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| Corona Cork Film Festival is delighted to welcome Merzak Allouache to the festival to present his films, and to speak publicly about his work to Professor Roy Armes. |
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Salut Cousin!
Merzak Allouache
1994 | 93mins | 35mm | Colour | Subtitled
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Salut Cousin! delves into the daily realities of the ‘beur’, the children of the Algerian immigrants who came to work in France’s factories during the economic boom of the fifties and sixties. We meet Mok, caught between the reality of the civil war that awai ts him in Algiers and his daily struggle for sanity in the Parisian projects. While Alilo, his Algerian cousin, falls in love with a West African neighbour in the adjacent housing project, Mok oscillates between his dual desires of becoming either French, or a successful American-style rapper. Merzak’s humourous yet unflinching portrayal of this Parisian immigrant community never stumbles into cliché
or trite condemnations of French racism, preferring to remain focused on the lives of its characters. - Harvard Film Archive
Tanit D’Or, Best Film, Carthage Film Festival 1997
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