With seven features to his name, Franco-Algerian director Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche still remains relatively unknown to art-house moviegoers both at home and abroad.
And yet, ever since his 2001 debut, Wesh, Wesh, What’s Happening?, he’s been one of the most fascinating and consistently surprising auteurs to emerge from France these past two decades. Each new film, whether set in the present (Adhen) or past (The Smugglers’ Songs), the Paris banlieue (Wesh, Wesh) or an Algerian village (Bled Number One), adds something original to a body of work that is a perpetual experiment in narrative cinema, blurring the lines between fiction, documentary, reality, fantasy and history in ways few directors currently do.
His latest, The Temple Woods Gang (Le Gang des Bois du Temple), is ostensibly a crime thriller, with an English title that sounds like an old Western and a French title like that of an unreleased Wu-Tang Clan album.
And yet, ever since his 2001 debut, Wesh, Wesh, What’s Happening?, he’s been one of the most fascinating and consistently surprising auteurs to emerge from France these past two decades. Each new film, whether set in the present (Adhen) or past (The Smugglers’ Songs), the Paris banlieue (Wesh, Wesh) or an Algerian village (Bled Number One), adds something original to a body of work that is a perpetual experiment in narrative cinema, blurring the lines between fiction, documentary, reality, fantasy and history in ways few directors currently do.
His latest, The Temple Woods Gang (Le Gang des Bois du Temple), is ostensibly a crime thriller, with an English title that sounds like an old Western and a French title like that of an unreleased Wu-Tang Clan album.
- 2/15/2023
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Berlin Film Festival has revealed the 28 titles selected for its Forum strand and the 26 projects at the Forum Expanded platform.
In the Forum strand, documentaries stand alongside personal essay films, while the films and installations that make up the Forum Expanded program revolve around political and personal legacies.
The festival takes place Feb. 16-26.
Forum Titles
“Allensworth”
by James Benning
U.S.
“Anqa”
by Helin Çelik
Austria/Spain
“About Thirty”
by Martin Shanly | with Martin Shanly, Camila Dougall, Paul Dougall, Esmeralds Escalante, Maria Soldi
Argentina
“Being in a Place – A Portrait of Margaret Tait”
by Luke Fowler | with Margaret Tait
U.K.
“The Bride”
by Myriam U. Birara | with Sandra Umulisa, Aline Amike, Daniel Gaga, Fabiola Mukasekuru, Beatrice Mukandayishimiye
Rwanda
“Cidade Rabat”
by Susana Nobre | with Raquel Castro, Paula Bárcia, Paula Só, Sara de Castro, Laura Afonso
Portugal/France
“De Facto”
by Selma Doborac | with Christoph Bach, Cornelius Obonya...
In the Forum strand, documentaries stand alongside personal essay films, while the films and installations that make up the Forum Expanded program revolve around political and personal legacies.
The festival takes place Feb. 16-26.
Forum Titles
“Allensworth”
by James Benning
U.S.
“Anqa”
by Helin Çelik
Austria/Spain
“About Thirty”
by Martin Shanly | with Martin Shanly, Camila Dougall, Paul Dougall, Esmeralds Escalante, Maria Soldi
Argentina
“Being in a Place – A Portrait of Margaret Tait”
by Luke Fowler | with Margaret Tait
U.K.
“The Bride”
by Myriam U. Birara | with Sandra Umulisa, Aline Amike, Daniel Gaga, Fabiola Mukasekuru, Beatrice Mukandayishimiye
Rwanda
“Cidade Rabat”
by Susana Nobre | with Raquel Castro, Paula Bárcia, Paula Só, Sara de Castro, Laura Afonso
Portugal/France
“De Facto”
by Selma Doborac | with Christoph Bach, Cornelius Obonya...
- 1/16/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Ridley Scott's Robin Hood showed in Cannes this past May, and one year later we might get a Hood-like eighteenth century hero in Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche’s fourth feature. Taking a page from Abdellatif Kechiche, Cineuropa reports that Ameur-Zaïmeche (director has seen his previous two films Bled Number One and Dernier Maquis shown on the Croisette) will once again go in front and behind the camera in Les Chants de Mandrin - a French/Belgian/Spanish co-production that started shooting this week. The cast includes Sylvain Roume, Abel Jafri, Sylvain Rifflet, Salim Ameur-Zaïmeche, Christian Milia-Darmezin, Kenji Meunier, Jean-Luc Nancy and Jacques Nolot. Les Chants de Mandrin opens with the execution of famous outlaw Louis Mandrin, a popular hero of the mid-eighteenth century, this sees the historical figure and his companions set out on a new, risky smuggling campaign in the French provinces. Protected by their weapons, the smugglers organise illegal...
- 10/5/2010
- IONCINEMA.com
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