Afric Hotel

In the 18th century, the Barbary threat became serious. In July 1785 two American ships were brought back to Algiers; in the winter of 1793, eleven American ships, their crews chained, were in the hands of the Dey of Algiers. To ensure the freedom of movement of their merchant fleet, the U.S.A was forced to conclude treaties with the main Barbary states, paying considerable sums of money as a guarantee of non-aggression. With Morocco, treaty of 1786, 30,000 dollars; Tripoli, November 4, 1796, $56,000; Tunis, August 1797, $107,000. But the most expensive and the most humiliating was with the dey of Algiers, on September 5, 1795, "peace and friendship treaty" which cost nearly a million dollars (including 525,000 ransom for freed American slaves) , with the obligation to pay 20,000 dollars on the arrival of each new consul and 17,000 dollars in annual gifts to senior Algerian officials...

Séfar (in Arabic: سيفار) is an ancient city in the heart of the Tassili n'Ajjer mountain range in Algeria, more than 2,400 km south of Algiers and very close to the Libyan border. Séfar is the largest troglodyte city in the world, with several thousand fossilized houses. Very few travelers go there given its geographical remoteness and especially because of the difficulties of access to the site. The site is full of several paintings, some of which date back more than 12,000 years, mostly depicting animals and scenes of hunting or daily life which testify that this hostile place has not always been an inhabited desert. Local superstition suggests that the site is inhabited by djins, no doubt in connection with the strange paintings found on the site.

Directed by Pierre Clément and Djamel-Eddine Chanderli, produced by the FLN Information Service in 1958, this film is a rare document. Pierre Clément is considered one of the founders of Algerian cinema. In this film he shows images of Algerian refugee camps in Tunisia and their living conditions. A restored DVD version released in 2016, from the 35 mm original donated by Pierre Clément to the Contemporary International Documentation Library (BDIC).

Nabila Djahnine, president of the feminist association Thirghri N'tmetout, died in hands of an armed group in Tizi Ouzou (Algeria) in 1995. The Islamists forced women, on pain of death, to wear the hijab or stop working. It was the first time a feminist woman paid with her life. Nabila wrote a letter to her sister Habiba in 1994. This documentary is her answer. In 2006 Habiba comes back to the place to restore her sister’s memory, her point of view, the day of her death and the political moment Algeria was going through at that time.

Happy farmers, a wedding and some giant cauliflowers...

A small Algerian town, off the beaten track of the war that is tearing the country apart. At the heart of the crisis that is destroying it, two young men, without work, without leisure activities, without hope, without anything... The film follows them in their daily wanderings between endless boredom and the expectation of the improbable. And shows their humour, their friendship, their will to live regardless.

Mohamed Iguerbouchène was born on February 7, 1907 in Aït-Ouchen in Algeria. He left for England in 1923 where he studied music and harmony. Subsequently, he went to Vienna, Austria, to learn piano techniques where he won 1st prize in harmony and piano. Mohamed Iguerbouchen became a composer, he composed four symphonies and several film scores including the famous “Pépé le Moko” (1937) with Jean Gabin. Mohamed Iguerbouchène bowed out on August 21, 1966 following a long illness.

A black ethnologist explores aspects of German life in West Germany in the early 1980s with a foreign eye - and meets with rejection because she dares to look at Europeans with the same tools as they have used for centuries in Africa.