Popular TV Serie in Morocco during the month of Ramadan

Al Qadiya (The Cause)

Director: Nourredine Lakhmari
TV Channel: 2M (Morocco, http://www.2m.tv/)
Cast: Noufissa Bench’hida, Mehdi Ouazzani, Siham Assif
Genre: Police/Thriller

About the TV serie: Al Qadya has been considered as an "avant-gardiste" TV serie. The main Al Qadya's character is a 30 years old woman police officer, Zineb El Hajjami. Zineb is heading a police scientific department and in every serie she has to solve along with her staff new crimes.

A "Life-Affirming" Movie from Lebanon

Bosta (2007)

Director: Philippe Aractingi

Script Writer: Philippe Aractingi

Cast: Rodney El Haddad (Kamal), Nadine Labaki (Lia), Nada Abou Farhat (Vola), Omar Rajeh (Omar) Liliane Nemri (Arze), Bshara Atallah (Khalil), Mounir Malaeb (Toufic), Mahmoud Mabsout (Caretaker), Rana Alamudin Karam (Isabelle)

Guest Stars: Sabah, Rouweida Attieh

Release Date: February 21, 2007
Genre: Musical
Country: Lebanon
Time: 1 h 42
Music: Ali El Khatib, Martin Russell, Simon Emmerson
Movie's Official website: http://www.bostathemovie.com/

About the Movie: "BOSTA" (the Autobus) is a film that is set in Lebanon with some of the most popular actors, dancers, choreographers in the Arab world. It is the first post-war Lebanese musical with contemporary Middle Eastern, and more precisely Lebanese rhythms, such as the Dabke dance, which is at the foreground of the Lebanese national folklore.
It is also the first Lebanese film to be entirely funded by private Lebanese investors. This represents a breakthrough in terms of production because Lebanese films, like in most countries in transition, rely mainly on western cultural funds. Through a financial establishment, participation shares were issued allowing the private and business sectors in Lebanon and the Arab world to invest in the movie.
The music of Bosta has also been a great challenge. It has made it possible to join efforts between local composers (Ali el Khatib) and the Afro Celt Sound System, a British group from Peter Gabriel's label "Real World". Such collaboration is the first in the local cinema production scene.
As you may know Lebanon is passing through crucial changes and the present news show the urge to adjust the image one has of Lebanon. There is a call for freedom and change. This film is a timely film that deals with the contemporary Lebanese society in a creative way and gives a positive outlook to the future away from the stereotypical image of war and terrorism. Source: http://www.bostathemovie.com/

About the Director: Philippe Aractingi was born in Lebanon in 1964. After two years in London and Paris he returned to Lebanon, aged 21, and was hired by the LBC Television Network. His big numbers of documentaries include ‘The Dream of the Acrobat Child’ (1996), for which he won the Grand Jury Prize at the Film Festival of Beirut. ‘Bosta’ is his first fiction feature. Source: http://www.arabfilmfestival.nl

New Algerian Movie against Extremism

Morituri (2007)

Director: Okacha Touita
Script Writer:
The movie is based upon the novel Morituri by the famous Algerian novelist Yasmina Khadra. Other writers have partecipated in writing the movie's script: Michel Alexandre, Nadia Char and Okacha Touita
Cast: Miloud Khetib (Commissaire Brahim Llob)
Azzedine Bouraghda (Lino)
Boualem Benani (Le directeur de la police)
Ahmed Benaissa (Commissaire Dine)
Rachid Fares (Lieutenant Serdj)
Release Date: April 25, 2007
Genre: Political Drama
Country: Algeria, France

Time: 1h 56
Music: Rachid Taha
Movie's Official website: http://www.morituri-lefilm.com/

Plot Synopsis: Civil war tears Algeria apart. Police captain Brahim Llob, also a writer in his spare time, spends his days hunting down Islamic fundamentalists. He has hence become their prime target; each day his fear grows as he goes to work at the Alger police headquarters. He must find a former senior government official’s daughter who has gone missing.Upright, with a biting wit and mocking attitude, cynical and disillusioned, Llob heads the investigation with his colleagues, officers Lino and Serdj. He quickly realizes that he’s treading on dangerous ground. His investigation leads him on the trail of a terrorist group given the task of wiping out Algerian intellectuals, and to people implicated in a scandal to do with the national bank.He then discovers, with the assistance of his colleague Dine, his ousted predecessor, that he has been manipulated by a politico-financial mafia. Now a nuisance for the powers that be, and on the brink of publishing Morituri, an exposé, Llob is forced to take early retirement – and to be fast about it. Source:

http://en.unifrance.org/
About the director: Okacha Touita was born in Mostaganem, Algeria. After studying at the Institut de Formation Cinématographique, he joined the film industry as an actor and director. He has also worked as assistant director on several films, notably with Olivier Assayas. In 1982, he directed his first feature, "Les Sacrifiés," which won the Georges Sadoul Prize and the Audience Award at the Orléans Movie Seminar. Touita is also a stage actor. Source:

http://en.unifrance.org/
About Yasmina Khadra: Yasmina Khadra is the pseudonym of the Algerian author Mohammed Moulessehoul, who was born in 1956. He took the feminine pseudonym to avoid submitting his manuscripts for approval by military censors while he was still in the Algerian army. He went into exile in France in 2000, where he now lives in seclusion. In his several writings on the civil war in Algeria, Khadra exposes the current regime and the fundamentalist opposition as the joint guilty parties in the Algerian Tragedy. Before his admission of identity in 2001, a leading critic in France wrote: "A he or a she? It doesn't matter. What matters is that Yasmina Khadra is today one of Algeria's most important writers." Source:

http://www.bookbrowse.com/

Yasmina Khadra's Official website: http://www.yasmina-khadra.com/

Algerian Movie against Extremism

Bab el Oued City (1994)

Director: Merzak Allouache
Script Writer: Merzak Allouache
Cast: Nadia Kaci (Yamina), Mohamed Ourdache (Saïd), Hassan Abdou (Boualem), Messaoud Hattou (Mess), Nadia Samir (Ouardya), Michel Such (Paulo)
Release Date: November 10, 1994
Genre: Political Drama
Time: 93 minutes
Director of Photography: Jean-Jacques Mréjen
Sound: Philippe Sénéchal
Editing: Marie Colonna
Music: Rachid Bahri

Plot Synopsis: Bab El-Oued City, released in 1994 during the height of the violence that rocked Algeria for nearly a decade, gives and inside glance at the rise of Islamic radicalism in the medina of Algiers and its appeal for the population. (...)

(...) The central character in this scary drama is Boualem, a young baker. Throughout his neighborhood the fundamentalists, locally led by the fanatical Said, have placed loud-speakers upon the rooftops to broadcast their hateful propaganda. Unable to stand the noise any longer, Boualem destroys a speaker and tosses it into the sea. Said promptly seeks to mow him down for his impudence. Said's sister, a liberal who resents having to wear a veil and behave in traditional ways, has been seeing Boualem. He loses his job after Said pushes his boss, who actually despises Said, but fears retaliation, to fire him. Surrounding the main plot are many sub stories, each of which sharply illustrates the dangers of fundamentalism. Source: http://maghrebi-studies.nitle.org/; Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide.

About the Director: Merzak Allouach was born in Algeria. He studied film at IDHEC and has directed documentaries, comedy programs for Algerian television and five feature films: "Omar Gatlato" 1976, "Les aventures d’un héros" 1977, "L’homme qui regardait les fenêtre" 1983 and "Un amour à Paris" in 1986 (awarded the Perspectives du Cinéma Français prize in Cannes). His latest film "Bab El-Oued City" was presented in the "Un certain regard" section of the Cannes Film Festival in 1994. Source: http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/

The movie is available at the Middle East Media Research Institute's Library