Yasmine Khlat

Synopsis and context
Produced by the algerian television, praised by critics but ignored by the audience, Nahla tells the story of Larbi, an algerian journalist who finds himself taken by surprise in the whirlpool of the events of the lebanese civil war, after the battle of Kfar Chouba in january 1975. By shooting Nahla three years later, with a script written with the collaboration of Rachid Boudjedra and Mouny Berrah, Farouk Beloufa says that he looked for a very raw realism in order to develop four stories in one: Larbi’s (the young male journalist), Maha’s and Hind’s (a female journalist and a female activist), and Nahla’s (a female singer). They all assists the construction of the myth of Nahla, the singer adulated by the Arab population. But Nahla loses her voice on stage, the atmosphere of crisis that reigns around her develops like an infection, while Beirut is under the attack of bombs. Larbi, while fascinated at the beginning, loses control, and gets himself in an inextricable situation.Read More »

“Mother, come and see how beautiful Damascus is!”, little Omar cries out to his mother, a young woman drained by mourning. The widely acclaimed, partially autobiographical, Dreams of the City marks the turn towards auteur Syrian cinema, resurrecting the memories of childhood of the working poor. A young widow and her two sons are forced to move from their native Quneytra to Damascus, where her father forces them to fend for themselves. Against the backdrop of successive military coups that punctuated the turbulent 1950s in Syria, Adib, the eldest of the boys comes of age in the vast and overwhelming urban magic of Damascus. The image of mosques, faces and the greenery of Damascus swirl by as Adib witnesses a dizzying and violent day in the city. At last, the wounded child gazes at the full moon; the city shatters against it.Read More »