Cinema Film Detail:
| |
My Lost Home (Ma Maison Perdue), by Kamal El Mahouti. France, 2002, 19 minutes. 
Screening formats available: Beta SP and DVD
Synopsis:
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.
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.
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
Screening Fee: $100
Filmmaker's Biography
Yusuf Wahbi (1897-1982) was one of the pioneers of the Egyptian cinema. In 1930 he established the first film studio in Egypt, financed and acted in the first important Egyptian silent film, “Zaynab”, and was one of the first directors to introduce sound to the Egyptian cinema in 1932. Like Nagib al-Rihani, he came from the popular theater, and elements of this background can be detected in his use of language, staging, mise-en-scene, and inclusion of music. He was recognized as the king of melodrama, and a true auteur, writing, directing and starring in most of his films. He was also among the first to protest against the Hollywood encroachment into the Egyptian market. He collaborated with director Togo Mizrahi in making a series of films with the famous actress and singer Layla Murad. He made over 30 films in his career.
|
|
