Malek Bensmaïl
Birth : 1966-01-01, Constantine, Algérie
History
Malek Bensmail est né en 1966 à Constantine en Algérie. Il suit des études de cinéma à Paris, puis un stage aux Studios Lenfilm de Saint-Pétersbourg. Il produit et réalise des magazines TV et des documentaires depuis 1990 : Roumanie, l’après Ceaucescu, en 1990 ; Le Miracle des mines de sel en 1993 ; Algerian TV show en 1996 ; Territoires(s) en 1997 ; Decibled en 1998 ; Boudiaf, un espoir assassiné en 1999 ; Des vacances malgré tout en 2001. La même année, il signe son premier court métrage de fiction DémoKratia adapté de Une peine à vivre de Rachid Mimouni. En 2002, il réalise Plaisirs d’eau et une enquête en 2 volets : Algérie(s). Son style cinématographique dessine les contours complexes et sensibles de l'humanité. Le Festival d’Apt s’honore d’avoir présenté Aliénations, La Chine est encore loin, Guerres secrètes du FLN en France. En 2012, sera présent au 10e festival son dernier film 1962, de l’Algérie française à l’Algérie algérienne, réalisé avec Marie Colonna
(chef monteuse et réalisatrice qui a réalisé notamment D’une rive à l’autre (1999) et Harki, un traître mot en 2002).
Director
The Battle of Algiers is one of the most critically celebrated films of all time. Made in 1966 it documented Algeria's war for independence. Returning to the roots of the production and the personalities involved, this documentary explores what made The Battle of Algiers so profound and also some of the controversies.
Director
Accommodated since Algeria's Bloody Decade of the 1990’s in the "House of the Press", the journalists of the famous daily newspaper El Watan await the completion of their new offices, a symbol of their independence. My camera is embedded in their newsroom as they follow the events of this new Algerian spring... President Bouteflika has set his sights on a 4th term. Beyond what we call the Arab revolutions and other mediatized terms, I wanted this film to serve as a memorial to the women and men, young and less young, who battle daily to safeguard the freedom of information in a politically and socially fossilized country.
Writer
On November 1, 1954, near Ghassira, a small village lost in the Aurès, a couple of French teachers and an Algerian kingpin were the first civilian victims of a seven-year war that would lead to the independence of Algeria. More than fifty years later, Malek Bensmaïl returns to this chaoui village, which has become "the cradle of the Algerian revolution", to film, over the seasons, its inhabitants, its school and its children.
Director
On November 1, 1954, near Ghassira, a small village lost in the Aurès, a couple of French teachers and an Algerian kingpin were the first civilian victims of a seven-year war that would lead to the independence of Algeria. More than fifty years later, Malek Bensmaïl returns to this chaoui village, which has become "the cradle of the Algerian revolution", to film, over the seasons, its inhabitants, its school and its children.
Producer
This documentary traces the spring of 2004, the Abdelaziz Bouteflika re-election as President of the Algerian Republic in the first round of elections. Following the step between the time the former Prime Minister Ali Benflis.
Cinematography
This documentary traces the spring of 2004, the Abdelaziz Bouteflika re-election as President of the Algerian Republic in the first round of elections. Following the step between the time the former Prime Minister Ali Benflis.
Director
This documentary traces the spring of 2004, the Abdelaziz Bouteflika re-election as President of the Algerian Republic in the first round of elections. Following the step between the time the former Prime Minister Ali Benflis.
Director
A chronicle of the everyday life in Constantine's psychiatric hospital.
Writer
Algérie(s) chronicles the country's struggle for peace, stability and democracy since independence from France. The documentary combines recent and archival interviews, newsreel footage, and recently filmed footage from Algeria to trace the origins of the violence that has left as many as 200,000 dead since 1988. Algérie(s) begins with a brief historical survey of events in Algeria since independence in 1962, and moves on to focus on the democratization process set in motion after the October 1988 riots, the success of Islamist groups in elections, the subsequent cancellation of these elections by the military, and the country's descent into violence, up to the present day. The film provides an excellent overview of recent events and asks tough questions about their causes, and humanizes a conflict that was all too often reported deep inside the newspaper with little more than "score cards" of the numbers killed.
Director
Algérie(s) chronicles the country's struggle for peace, stability and democracy since independence from France. The documentary combines recent and archival interviews, newsreel footage, and recently filmed footage from Algeria to trace the origins of the violence that has left as many as 200,000 dead since 1988. Algérie(s) begins with a brief historical survey of events in Algeria since independence in 1962, and moves on to focus on the democratization process set in motion after the October 1988 riots, the success of Islamist groups in elections, the subsequent cancellation of these elections by the military, and the country's descent into violence, up to the present day. The film provides an excellent overview of recent events and asks tough questions about their causes, and humanizes a conflict that was all too often reported deep inside the newspaper with little more than "score cards" of the numbers killed.
Producer
Face to the firing squad a dictator is awaiting death. As the soldiers shoulder their rifles, the man remembers. He recalls with wicked jubilation his devouring ambition, his complete absence of scruples, his brutal lack of humanity, his taste for manipulation, the cowardice of his entourage, his ambiguous relationships with a woman named Dêmokratia.
Writer
Face to the firing squad a dictator is awaiting death. As the soldiers shoulder their rifles, the man remembers. He recalls with wicked jubilation his devouring ambition, his complete absence of scruples, his brutal lack of humanity, his taste for manipulation, the cowardice of his entourage, his ambiguous relationships with a woman named Dêmokratia.
Director
Face to the firing squad a dictator is awaiting death. As the soldiers shoulder their rifles, the man remembers. He recalls with wicked jubilation his devouring ambition, his complete absence of scruples, his brutal lack of humanity, his taste for manipulation, the cowardice of his entourage, his ambiguous relationships with a woman named Dêmokratia.
Writer
Immigrants in the Paris area since 1964, Kader and his family decide to spend their summer vacation in his native village, not far from Algiers. During holiday, the director captures little family stories that portray the franco-algerian relation and the reality of Algeria in these previous years.
Writer
The largest country in the Arab world and a producer of hydrocarbons, Algeria has everything it needs to weigh on the international scene. But Africa's second military power seems undermined by its internal problems. While the Bouteflika regime has fallen and the popular “hirak” movement has shown that the people are ready to enter a more democratic era, the country appears as a colossus with feet of clay, which has failed enhance their independence. How did this isolation come about? From the “dark decade” of terrorism to the fall of Bouteflika, via 9/11 or the Arab revolutions, this documentary sheds light on Algerian foreign policy in recent decades, while deciphering the strategy of Western powers towards it.
Director
The largest country in the Arab world and a producer of hydrocarbons, Algeria has everything it needs to weigh on the international scene. But Africa's second military power seems undermined by its internal problems. While the Bouteflika regime has fallen and the popular “hirak” movement has shown that the people are ready to enter a more democratic era, the country appears as a colossus with feet of clay, which has failed enhance their independence. How did this isolation come about? From the “dark decade” of terrorism to the fall of Bouteflika, via 9/11 or the Arab revolutions, this documentary sheds light on Algerian foreign policy in recent decades, while deciphering the strategy of Western powers towards it.
Director
Immigrants in the Paris area since 1964, Kader and his family decide to spend their summer vacation in his native village, not far from Algiers. During holiday, the director captures little family stories that portray the franco-algerian relation and the reality of Algeria in these previous years.
Director
A journey through Algerian music, past and present, alongside a political look at Algerian society today. This documentary shows how music and musicians representing Afro-Maghrebian new tendancies, contributes to the blending and the fusion of Maghrebian and African cultures, as well as of the European and Western one. It tells about exile, about artist's feelings, about today Algeria. It shows how Maghrebian living in France express their musical culture, their roots, their traditions, mixing them up with the other cultures they meets.
Director
Based on Algerian proverbs and sayings, Territorie(s) reviews Algerian history in this century. The french colonisation, the pacification of 1957 and the ultimate independence in 1962. The political leaders are considered in cleverly edited sequences: Boudiaf, Ben Bella, Colonel Boumedienne and figures from the Islamic movement like Ali Belhadj and Farakhan. The french and Algerian intellegentias are also included in this kaleidoscopic image of a country that thanks to its eventful colonial past, still has difficulties determining its own identity more than thirty years after its independence. Barbarism is all its forms, including the military forms it can assume with followers of the FIS, is set against the domestic warning of those who plead for keeping eyes open, and keeping society open.
Screenplay
Director
Director
