Hadj Smaine Mohamed Seghir

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Hadj Smaine Mohamed Seghir, (often credited Hadj Smaine) born October 29, 1932 in Constantine, and died September 6, 2021 in Los Angeles, is an Algerian actor and director. At that time, Constantine was considered a place giving great importance to religion, culture, art, and Algerian Arab-Muslim traditions. Hadj Smaine grew up in Constantine with his family and friends who loved art and culture in general; cinema, music, scouting, sports such as swimming in Sidi M'Sid. With his scout friends, Hadj Smaine played sketches inspired by the films they watched in the city's theaters. With friends, they went to the Constantine film club (ex. Université Populaire, Abdelhamid Ben Badis Center currently). The Popular University, which was at the same time the conservatory of the city of Constantine, had premises allocated to associations for musicians, for amateur theater, among others for scouts. The Popular University also had other administrative functions because it depended on a state structure; the French Colonial Administration. Over time, Hadj Smaine had joined the theater troupe Les Milles et une Nuits with other friends of scouting; Hassan Belhadj (1st director of Algerian Cinema, great actor, patriot and former collaborator of M'Hamed Yazid) and Abdelkrim Menaï (former scout of Muslim scouts). After several years of theater practice, Hadj Smaine left the troupe Les Milles et Une Nuit in order to create a theater without "sketch", similar to that which was practiced in Europe and in the Arab world (in Egypt more particularly). Among others, Hadj Smaine was a member of the following theater troupes: Les Milles et Une Nuits, Les Compagnons du Vieux Rocher, The Algerian theater team before Independence (from 1957 to 1958), The troupe of the Youth House of Hussein Dey (before 1962), Les Capucines d'Alger (before 1962), The National Theater of Algeria (at Independence). He died on September 6, 2021 in Los Angeles (USA). Born : 29th-Oct-1932

Movie Credits

The Adventures of a Hero

In one of the tribes of the Algerian Sahara, everyone awaits the arrival of the hero who will defend the rights of the poor. A man decides one day to put the mark of the "hero" on his newborn son and the whole tribe celebrates the arrival of this eagerly awaited messiah who came to save them. This false hero then grows up by assuming his role of savior. Filled with cynicism, he crosses the countryside and has a number of adventures.
Released : 2nd-Jan-1979

Cry of Stone

Led by Daoudi, a disenchanted architect, a group of Constantines return to their village in deep Algeria where a young man delivers to them words of boyish wisdom inherited from his deceased grandfather..
Released : 14th-Jan-1987

The Man Who Was Looking at the Windows

A police office in Algiers sometime after independence. Mr Rachid, father, around fifty years old, former colonial official transferred to the cinema annex library. Mr. Rachid, disappointed and exasperated by his sad life, faced with an inspector who questions him, tries to explain: why did he kill his former department head after a long night of wandering?
Released : 1st-Jan-1985

Chronicle of the Years of Fire

A meticulous chronicle of the evolution of the Algerian national movement from 1939 until the outbreak of the revolution on November 1, 1954, the film unequivocally demonstrates that the "Algerian War" is not an accident of history, but a slow process of suffering and warlike revolts, uninterrupted, from the start of colonization in 1830, until this "Red All Saints' Day" of November 1, 1954. At its center, Ahmed gradually awakens to political awareness against colonization, under the gaze of his son, a symbol of the new Algeria, and that of Miloud, half-mad haranguer, half-prophet, incarnation of Popular memory of the revolt, the liberation of Algeria and its people.
Released : 26th-Nov-1975

The Winds of the Aures

Le Vent des Aurès – the first road movie of Algerian cinema – describes the transformations of the daily life of the Algerian people during the destructive French occupation, then during the war of liberation. While military repression is in full swing, a peasant woman finds herself alone in her mountain home when her only son is kidnapped by French soldiers shortly after her husband's death during a raid. One day, seeing a dead chicken, which she considers a bad omen, she decides to leave home and embarks on a painful journey through the mountains. Accompanied by a couple of chickens, she moves from one detention camp to another in a desperate search for her missing son. The film is inspired by the events experienced by the director's family.
Released : 8th-Jun-1967

Patrol in the East

The film traces the story of a patrol of the Algerian National Liberation Army (ALN), whose mission is to transport a prisoner French soldier to the Tunisian border. Through the march of this group of guerrillas we witness the spirit of sacrifice and combativeness of these men from the people. The patrol will be decimated, but a young peasant will take over and complete the mission.
Released : 2nd-Jan-1971

The Battle of Algiers

Tracing the struggle of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale to gain freedom from French colonial rule as seen through the eyes of Ali from his start as a petty thief to his rise to prominence in the organisation and capture by the French in 1957. The film traces the rebels' struggle and the increasingly extreme measures taken by the French government to quell the revolt.
Released : 8th-Sep-1966

The Uprooted

In 1880, in colonized Algeria, it was decided that the Algerian peasants of the Ouarsenis mountains would see their lands dispossessed in favor of the French colonists. Two methods were used to achieve this, either by sheer force or by a ploy forcing the fellahs to pay fines too high to be paid. The uprooted must then leave for the cities, swelling the mass of proletarians in the slums ...
Released : 1st-Mar-1977

أطفال نوفمبر

In the streets of the Casbah of Algiers, an FLN fighter pursued by the colonial police hands over confidential documents to Mourad, an Algerian child shouting newspapers who must at all costs pass them on to the resistance. But the police are on their trail and will do anything to get them back.
Released : 2nd-Jan-1975

Last Image

Seen through the filtered lens of boyhood memories, award-winning director Mohamed Lakhdar-Hamina crafted this half-fictional, half-autobiographical account of a brief period in the history of an Algerian village. It is 1940, and the quiet town is ruled by French colonialists appointed by the Vichy government. Algerians are being called up for service in the Vichy military, and Jews in the village are in danger of deportation. A beautiful young schoolteacher named Claire Boyer (Veronique Jannot) arrives in town and turns every male head within miles, including 14-year-old Mouloud (Merwan Lakhdar-Hamina, the director's son). Simon Attal (Michel Boujenah), a fellow teacher and a Jew, is also attracted to Claire, and so is Mouloud's older brother. Suddenly two murders occur in the village, Simon is in danger of being deported, and the tone shifts from the dreams of boyhood to the realities of manhood.
Released : 2nd-Jun-1986

Sharia

Sofiane is an Arab immigrant who lives in the US away from religion, customs, and traditions of his native land. His life is turned upside down as his American wife; Heather, starts making drastic changes in her spiritual beliefs and lifestyle. Although not really excited about Heather's decision, Sofiane puts an act in front of her to look supportive. But as time goes by, Heather's religious practices start to brings back to him old memories of painful experiences, and threaten to unearth a past Sofiane thought was buried forever.
Released : 12th-Feb-2016

TV Credits

الحَرَيق

- In 1939 in eastern Algeria, Omar, a young boy of ten, lives with his family in a room in Dar Sbitar, a house shared by several families who overcome the trials they go through every day to ensure their subsistence. Her deceased father is Aïni, the mother, who bleeds herself from all four veins to keep her children and their grandmother alive. The families of Dar Sbitar share their intimacy and their daily life, this life animates the big house, which itself becomes a character in its own right. "El Harik" (The Fire), is an Algerian drama series in 10 episodes adapted from Mohamed Dib's trilogy "The Big House", "The Fire" and "The Loom".
Released : 15th-Mar-1974

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