Events

CinemaEast 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