Wesh Wesh, by Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche. France, 2002, 83 minutes

Kamel has returned to his parents' home in the Paris suburbs after an absence of seven years, having spent five of them in prison in France and two in his native Algeria, where he was deported.  Kamel sets out to re-establish his life in France but finds he is impeded at every turn by his illegal status and by the French police who harass the Algerian youth.  His siblings have taken different paths to escaping poverty; his sister has become a lawyer and lives with a Frenchman outside the housing projects while his brother has chosen a life of violence and drug-dealing.  Kamel finds some solace with a French woman and with the younger children of the ghetto, who accompany him on his fishing trips in the woods.  The consequences of his brother's criminal ways however come to a riveting climax that robs Kamel of any hope for a normal life. More

Memories of Immigration (Memoires d'immigres), by Yamina Benguigui. France, 1997/8, 160 minutes (in three parts)

In this seminal documentary, a triptych of stories spells out the painful fate of two generations of Maghrebi immigration to France. First we meet the men who left North Africa to forge their way in the paradise of France, only to discover that their paradise is one built of mud and tin roofs; then, the lives of the women who fared little better when they came to join their husbands struggling in this sad poverty. Finally come the stories of the children whose identity is blurred and forgotten as the pervasive French culture absorbs their Arab heritage. More

Voisins Voisines, by Malik Chibane. France, 2005, 90 minutes

A rapper is racing against time—he has just three days to write his lyrics; otherwise, he can say good-bye to his advance from the record company. When he finally finds inspiration right on his doorstep, in the often comic struggles of his neighbors in the Mozart Estate housing project, he sets the stage for a lively hip-hop fable, set to the beat of the banlieues. More

My Lost Home (Ma Maison Perdue), by Kamal El Mahouti. France, 2002, 19 minutes.

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. More

Where Fig Trees Grow (Rue des Figuiers), by Yasmina Yahiaoui. France, 2005, 82 minutes

In Yasmina Yahiaoui’s congenial ensemble piece, the setting is Rue des Figuiers, a (fig-tree-less) North African neighborhood in Toulon, where women hold sway and fundamentalist puritanism is given short shrift. Djamila is a middle-aged, belly-dancing femme fatale whose long-term lover, the rakish hairdresser Marfouz, finally gives in to his family and imports a demure young bride from the Maghreb... More

Bled Number 1, by Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche. Algeria/France, 2006, 100 minutes

A follow-up to his well-regarded debut "Wesh-Wesh", Bled Number One is a slice-of-life film that speaks volumes about the conditions of life in today’s Algeria. Kamel is deported from France back to his native Algeria after being released from prison.  There he finds that beneath the veneer of tranquil and bucolic village life lays an intense struggle between many forces – religion, secularism, modernity, and notions of tradition and honor.  He watches as these conflicts mar the lives of the townsfolk around him... More

Tea in the Harem (Le Thé au harem d’Archimède), by Mehdi Charef. France, 1985, 110 minutes

Two adolescent young men in the suburbs of Paris, Pat and Madjid, fail to find employment after leaving school and drift into a life of petty crime, stealing and pimping when the mood takes them. Both live in a run-down housing estate and both dream of a better life, but neither is able to break free of their situation. More

Dounia, by Zaida Ghorab-Volta. France, 1997, 17 minutes

Dounia is the 20-year-old daughter of an Algerian couple living in France. One morning after her night shift at the hospital, she finds her father waiting at home for her. He is drunk and forbids her to go back to work, but Dounia refuses to give in... More

Cheb, by Rachid Bouchareb. Algeria/France, 1991, 79 minutes

Merwan, a 19-year-old beur, has been expelled from France and forced to return to Algeria, the country where he was born but where he is now an alien to the language and customs. His fellow nationals confiscate his passport and send him to the army; in the stuffy atmosphere of a desert military barracks, his fellow Algerians mercilessly remind him of his foreignness. He decides to escape this country that holds him against his will, only to return to the country that has rejected him, along the way discovering all the ironies of the myth of “homecoming.” More

Memories of October 17 (Mémoires du 17 Octobre), by Faiza Guene and Bernard Richard. France, 2002, 17 minutes

On the evening of October 17, 1961, the French police brutally repressed a peaceful demonstration supporting Algerian independence. Hundreds of Maghrebi immigrants died in police attacks, dozens were thrown into the Seine and more died in detention centers. The police, however, reported only two deaths. This powerful film unearths the painful memories of witnesses, keeping alive the memory of a massacre that French officialdom would like us to forget. More

Living in Paradise (Vivre au Paradis), by Bourlem Guerdjou. France, 1998, 105 minutes (North America only)

1961-1962, the Algerian War is under way, Lakhdar, an immigrant construction worker, lives in the Nanterre shantytown which is 3km away from Paris. He can no longer bear living alone, far from his family in Southern Algeria. Once he succeeds in bringing them to France, he starts looking for a decent apartment. Just as he is about to reach his goal, at the cost of a betrayal, history strikes back at him. More

Slimane Azem “A Legend of Exile” (Slimane Azem " Une légende de l'exil”), by Rachid Merabet, France, 2005, 52 minutes (available in French only)

Undoubtedly, Slimane Azem was the most popular singer amidst the immigrant Algerian community in France, and the first immigrant artist  to earn a golden record. His songbook was shaped by the lived experience of exile. In spite of his talent and popularity, he was never able to transgress the ethnic barrier of community. He died in 1983 in Moissac, his adoptive hometown, more than twenty years after his death, this film pays homage to him. More

The General Store, by Chantal Briet. France, 2005, 84min

In Epinay-sur-Seine, a Paris suburb, Ali’s grocery store is the only shop still in business in the decayed shopping center of the neighborhood « la Source ». The store is the only place left for the forsaken inhabitants of the surrounding tower blocks to meet and exchange daily experiences. This documentary film takes us into the everyday scenes at a small grocery store and the lives of its customers... More