This 15th edition, sponsored by filmmaker Merzak Allouache, (Chouchou, Salut Cousin, Normal !, le Repenti), which will present a preview of his film Les Terrasses, reveals the plurality of approaches and cinematographic languages of filmmakers confirmed as young emerging authors from the Maghreb and the Middle East.
Many directors will honor us with their presence.
A round table on the “production and distribution of films from the South” will enrich this programming.
So many unmissable events on the program for this 15th edition.

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We will open the festival, with the film BEFORE SNOWFALL, by Kurdish-Iraqi, Hisham Zaman. It stages the trajectory of two lonely souls who cross paths so as not to let go. The stunning beauty of the panoramic landscapes and the shots of the snow appear like real cinematographic scores.
The film by Franco-Algerian Merzak Allouache, a witness filmmaker of contemporary Algeria is presented in preview. LES TERRASSES is filmed in the terraces of Algiers, highlighting their role in the city. It describes a country sick with its contradictions, the excesses of religion and the hopes of youth, its dreams of music and better days.
With ADIOS CARMEN du ma rocain, Mohamed Amin Benamraoui, written from autobiographical elements, the public is immersed in the Rif of the mid-1970s. Several themes are discussed, immigration and family separation, the condition of women, the difference, the merciless violence of children ...
From Egypt, comes EL OTT (THE CAT) by Ibrahim El-Batout, he is played by the star of Egyptian cinema, Amr el Waked. El Ott was filmed in 2013 amid a climate of protests which led to the resignation of President Mohamed Morsi. It is an action film against the backdrop of child organ trafficking in Egypt. It is also a story of gangsters in Egypt today.
On the documentary side, we will present films by talented directors.
The first, LE JOURNAL DE SHEHERAZADE , by Lebanese filmmaker Zeina Daccache. The director plants her camera in Baabda prison in Beirut. She inserts in the theatrical representation played by prisoners inside an Arab prison for women, their intimate stories.
Then, from Palestine, the entertaining THE 18 FUGITIVES by Amer Shomali and Paul Cowan. We are transported to what could be an Arab western that tells us how the Israeli army tried to prevent Palestinians from raising 18 cows. He points out that humor can be more abrasive than any political speech.
We will screen a punchy film, EL GORT, by the Tunisian director, Hamza Ouni. This documentary, filmed over a period of six years, crosses the period of the revolution. It gives an account of the upheavals it will cause in the life of the actors. It testifies to the rage for living of the Tunisian youth.
Documenting Syria today? With OUR TERRIBLE COUNTRY , Mohammad Ali Atassi joined forces with photographer Ziad Homsi, to follow the perilous journey of Yassine Haj Saleh, a dissident intellectual. This one undertakes to go to see his sister, in full zone controlled by Daesh, to finally join Turkey. The filmmaker has succeeded in talking about violence, denouncing it and showing its extent without ever bringing it to the screen or reproducing it.
We will close, with a preview, THEEB (LOUP) , by Jordanian Naji Abu Nowar, distinguished in several international festivals. Shot in the north of Jordan, in the magnificent landscapes where David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia was filmed, Theeb, whose story is set in 1916, is a film that deals with brotherhood and betrayal.

To explore the cinema of the Maghreb and the Middle East, to share a little-known cinematography, which contributes constructively to the questions which cross the contemporary Arab world, to provoke debates with the public, these are the objectives of the Festival Cinémas du Sud.

Farida Hamak, Abdellah Zerguine
Artistic direction