| |
My Lost Home (Ma Maison perdue), by Kamal El Mahouti. France/Morocco, 2001, 19 min, Beta SP
Tinker Auditorium, French Institute/Alliance Française
55 East 59th Street
New York, NY 10022
On the eve of the demolition of a housing project in Saint-Denis, France, Moroccan-born filmmaker Kamal El Mahouti revisits the place where he lived from the age of six. His delicate, impressionistic document probes the graffiti-covered walls, broken windows and empty stairwells of a bleak apartment block to retrieve the memories of an immigrant family, its difficulties and its rituals.
Followed by: Tea in the Harem (Le Thé au harem d’Archimède), by Mehdi Charef. France, 1985, 110 min, 35mm
Sat, Nov 10, 2:30 P.M.
Filmmaker's Biography
Kamal El Mahouti is a French writer and director of Moroccan descent. Born in Casablanca in 1963, El Mahouti moved to France at the age of six. He studied film at the Université Paris VIII, where he completed the 16mm short Once Upon a Time, the 14th of July 1945 (Il était une fois le 14 juillet 1945). In 2002 he directed My Lost Home (Ma Maison perdue); it was selected for screening at the Exodes de l’Écran Festival in Saint-Denis and the Biennale des Cinémas Arabes held at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. In 2005, with the help of a CNC grant, he finished the script The Past Is Dead (Lifat Mat); he is currently finishing shooting this feature. In April 2006, he initiated a film festival, Panorama des Cinémas du Maroc et du Maghreb, in Saint-Denis, Paris. This event was a great public and critical success and will see its third edition in April 2008.
Festivals and Awards
- Biennale des Cinémas Arabes, France, 2002
- ArteEast CinemaEast Film Series, 2003
- African Film Festival, New York, 2006
- African Film Festival Traveling Series (Baltimore Museum of Art), 2007
- Sydney African Film Festival, 2006
Credits
Cast: Lachen El Mahouti, Kamal El Mahouti, Adel Zekraoui
Writer: Kamal El Mahouti
Producer: Kamal El Mahouti, Indigènes Films
Cinematographer: Kamal El Mahouti
Editor: Claudine Dupont, Dominique Bertou
Sound: Sandrine Mercier
Print Source
Kamal El Mahouti
Indigènes Films
13, rue Des Ursulines
93200 Saint-Denis
France
Tel: +33 6 64 70 55 09
Fax: +33 1 42 43 38 36
Email: indigenes.films@free.fr
|
