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Merzak Allouache
(Algiers, 1944) first studied at the National Film Institute in Algiers, where he made his graduate film Croisement, and later at Idhec in Paris. He worked as an assistant director on various films, and made documentaries and comedy programs for Algerian television. In 1976 he made his feature debut, Omar Gatlato, which was presented at numerous international film festivals, including Cannes (Semaine de la Critique), Berlin (Youth Forum) and Locarno, and won Best Film at the Festival de la Francophonie in Cabourg and the Silver Medal at the Moscow Film Festival. His follow-up film, Les Aventures d’un Heros (1977), was equally successful and screened at, among others, the festivals of Amiens, Montpellier, Tokyo and Cartagine (Prix Tanit d’Or). In 1994, Bab El-Oued City was selected in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize, and later screened at the 2nd Biennale of Arab Cinema in Paris (Grand Prix Institut du Monde Arabe), Cartagine (Tanit d’Argent and Prix Utica) and the Mediterrean Film Festival of Bastia (Olivier d’Argent and Best Music Prize). In 1995 he directed Salut Cousin!, selected in the Directors' Fortnight. That same year his short film Interdit de Camerer! was also part of the celebratory omnibus Lumičre et Compagnie. In 2004 he returned to the Bab el-Oued neighborhood to make Bab el Web.
I wrote this story after doing much research, through interviews and newspaper articles, as well as discussions with young people on a problem completely new to Algeria: the clandestine immigrants (the so-called harragas or brűleurs) who burn their IDs and flee their country's misery. Like Africans, Moroccans and Tunisians, today hundreds of young Algerians cross the Mediterranean, often risking their lives, in an attempt to reach the El Dorado that is Europe. When I began writing, I didn't even begin to imagine how immense this problem was becoming, so much so that it has become a national threat that requires the attention of Algeria’s highest authorities. Despite the increasing number of departures, cadavers fished out of the waters weekly and virulent newspaper articles, and the creation of associations of parents of young people who have disappeared at sea, no real human or political solution has been put forth to curb this phenomenon, in a country that is rich thanks to the its crude oil industry. There is obviously, and exclusively, incarceration, and today young poeople risk five years in jail if caught trying to illegally cross the Mediterranean. These new “boat people” are the symbol of the drama being experienced by Algerian youths, who flounders between a radical Islam that creates kamikazes, a collective revolt that often burns cities and villages, suicide and group escapes through any possible means, from a country that seems paralyzed and no longer offers its children anything.
Merzak Allouache
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