Algerian cinema is in search of a revival, decades after its 1970s heyday and steep decline, with authorities having blown hot and cold in their support.
Today, the country counts only a few dozen theatres against a backdrop of legal, bureaucratic and financial restraints.
“Algerian cinema is rich in its talents and poor in its means,” said producer and film critic Ahmed Bedjaoui. “We need to give a little more freedom to filmmakers.”
During the 1960s and 70s, the north African country was home to more than 450 cinemas and film libraries.
Its production then yielded cinematic gems like “Inspector Tahar’s Holiday” (1973), “Omar Gatlato” (1976), and the Palme d’Or-winning “Chronicle of the Years of Fire” (1975).
In the 1980s, though, the industry fell into a tailspin.
“The industry and its talents started disappearing little by little,” said Bedjaoui, who is also known as Algeria’s “Mister Cinema”.
The onset of dire economic and political crises then thrust the hydrocarbon-rich country into a long civil war between the government and Islamist rebel groups.
During the 1992-2002 conflict, which came to be known as the Black Decade, numerous artists and film professionals left the country.
Cinemas and other entertainment spaces, viewed as places of depravity by Islamists, were shut down one after another.
It was only in the diaspora, said Bedjaoui, that “filmmakers like Nadir Mokhneche or Rachid Bouchareb filled the void by producing works about Algeria”.
