n 2005, Cork Film Festival formed a partnership with the Festival du Film Amazigh of Algeria through a collaboration with its director, Si El Hachemi Assad. This bond was formed through a mutual interest in exploring our cultures by bringing film and music to each other’s festivals. Culture Ireland supported the project from its first inception and a delegation from Cork Film Festival, which included two ethnomusicologists (and musicians), Tony Langlois of University College Cork and Desi Wilkinson of the University of Newcastle travelled to the Northern Saharan town of Ghardaia in December 2005. There we presented a programme of Irish films, which included animation, experimental and documentary films; and our resident musicians performed and interacted with local musicians. The Festival Amazigh is an itinerant festival which each year stages its film festival in a different part of Algeria, impressively engaging with the local communities and reawakening long-closed cinemas to national and international film. We returned in January 2007 to the north western town of Tlemcen and introduced the animation work of Edith Pieperhoff and the Palme d’Or winning Ken Loach film ‘The Wind That Shakes The Barley’. Filmmakers Edith Pieperhoff, Ed Godsell and musician Dr. Sean O’Corcoráin joined us and again a complimentary part of our project was the ethnomusicological activities engaged in with local Andalous musicians.

We are pleased to present this opportunity to view a range of Algerian films; films which originate from Algerian-born directors, based in Algeria or living abroad; indigenous film, and coproductions with other countries – a complex production situation we in Ireland are familiar with.

We warmly welcome to Cork our guests – Si El Hachemi Assad, director of Festival du Film Amazigh, Professor Roy Armes, the foremost authority in the English language on North African cinema; the subject of our special focus, director Merzak Allouache who will present three of his key films and director Ali Mauzoui, who presents the World Premiere of his new film in the Kabylie language ‘Mimzerane, La Fille Aux Tresses’.

We hope you enjoy this unique opportunity in Ireland to delve into a week of Algerian cinema, interviews and presentations. We thank all the participants and those who helped make the project possible; particularly Culture Ireland and Si El Hachemi Assad.