DANS TES YEUX JE VOIS MON PAYS

75 minutes, 2019
Director : Kamal HACHKAR (France, Morocco)
Production : HK’Art Studio (Morocco)
in coproduction with Timbia Films (France), with the participation of TV 2M (Morocco)

Neta Elkayam and Amit Haï Cohen live in Jerusalem. Together they created a band whose music draws on and re-fashions their Judeo-Moroccan heritage. On stage as in life, they explore this dual identity, as if to repair the wounds of the exile their parents experienced. Punctuated by musical meetings, “In your Eyes, I see my Country” follows them on a Moroccan tour which changes their concept of themselves and what they want to become. From that comes the dream of creating bridges with the country of their forefathers.

Kamal HACHKAR is an independent Franco-Moroccan film-maker. Born in Morocco, he left the country at the age of six months with his mother to join his immigrant father in France. His entire childhood was marked by his father’s having to leave Morocco to find work. Because of this uprooting, he still has a special sympathy for the displaced.
With a master’s degree in history from the Sorbonne University, he became a history teacher. In 2012 he made his first documentary, “Tinghir-Jerusalem: the echoes of the Mellah”: selected at the 2013 PriMed – the Festival of the Mediterranean in Images and at many festivals around the world, the film won several awards and sparked a national debate on the many faces of Morocco.

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BUKRA FIL MISH-MISH

(TOMORROW, WHEN THE APRICOTS BLOOM)

73 minutes, 2019
Director : Tal MICHAEL (Israel)
Production : Cassis Films (Israel), Les Films d’Ici Méditerranée (France)

In a basement near Paris a treasure-trove of Egyptian animated films has been found. The films show the work of the Arab world’s pioneers in this genre, the Frenkel brothers: three exceptional young film-makers, creators of Mish-Mish Effendi, the Mickey Mouse of the entire region, which disappeared from Egyptian screens when the State of Israel was created.
Through their animated images, we uncover the history of the Frenkel family, marked by exile, a trauma being repeated today.
“Bukra fil Mish-Mish” is a common Arabic expression referring to something which will never happen: “if pigs could fly”. At the same time the extraordinary discovery of these films reveals a forgotten era gone forever, an Arab-Jewish golden age when the two communities could create things together. Not only has it disappeared, it has been erased from the pages of history.

Born in Haïfa in 1974, Tal MICHAEL is a film and television director. She has a degree in cinema and television from Tel Aviv University and worked on a doctorate on comparative literature. Among her films are the two documentaries “Around the Bed of a Dying Collaborator” (2018), “Pitbulls: Flesh and Blood” (2014).

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NE NOUS RACONTEZ PLUS D’HISTOIRES !

(DON’T TELL US ANY MORE TALES!)
88 minutes, 2020
Directors : Carole Filiu-Mouhali (France) and Ferhat Mouhali (Algeria)
Production : VraiVrai Films (France), Carole Filiu-Mouhali (France) and Ferhat Mouhali (Algeria)

She is French, he Algerian. The whole of their childhood was shaken by the war in Algeria. For the journalist, daughter of French colonials, it means traumatic memories of forced departure; for the director, a human rights activist, it means mythical tales of glorious independence.
Everyone is entitled to their version of history.
Far from the official history books they meet witnesses whose words have been deliberately forgotten, who fight against the war of memories so that a more balanced truth can be heard.

Carole FILIU is the daughter of French colonials from Algiers and Tiaret.
Having graduated from the Bordeaux School of Journalism in 2009, she worked first for Sud Ouest, a regional newspaper, and then for its website, SudOuest.fr. For two years, she wrote, directed and edited the web-documentary “Fatea (Femmes au travail en Algérie)”: nine portraits of women across Algeria.

Ferhat MOUHALI is Algerian, born in Kabylie.
He obtained a bachelor’s degree in economics in 2005 at the University of Bejaia, a period coloured by his political militancy. He joined the Rassemblement Actions Jeunesse, a national organisation, becoming secretary general of the Bejaia section.
At the same time he followed a theatre training course for two years.
In 2010 he took part in the Bejaia Doc training scheme, created by the documentary film-maker Habiba Djahnine. There he made his first short documentary, “Heureusement que le temps passe”, about the decline of the Algerian hospital system. In 2012 this film won the Jury Award at the National Amazigh Film Festival in Tizi Ouzou and in 2013 the Audience Coup de Cœur at the Paris festival Point Doc.
During the Femis summer school in Paris in 2012 he made a short “Des vies sous silence” where he questions the part played by the French in the liberation of Algeria. He worked with Carole Filiu on the making and editing of the web-documentary “Fatea (Femmes au travail en Algérie)”.

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LOS QUE BUSCAMOS

(THE ONES WHO SEARCH)

86 minutes, 2019
Director : Óscar Bernàcer (Spain)
Production : Kaishaku Films S.L. (Spain), Nakamura Films S.L. (Spain)

Enrique was separated from his mother at birth.
Ascensión was forced to give up her daughter after giving birth.
Both are victims of the “stolen babies” policy during Franco’s dictatorship in Spain. They are waging a legal battle while continuing their search. They live with the weight of either guilt or rejection while trying to build their own identity.

Óscar BERNACER is a script-writer and director.
He has made several short films – “Las Zapatillas de Laura”, “Desayuno con Diadema”, “Bikini” and “Apolo 81” – which have been shown on TV and in festivals across the world, where they have won many awards.
In 2016 he made his third documentary “El Hombre que Embotelló el Sol” (The man who bottled the sun).

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OBJECTOR

75 minutes, 2019
Director : Molly STUART (USA)
Production : Buried Seed Productions (USA)

Like all young Israelis, Atalya has to do military service.
Unlike most of her comrades, though, she questions the army’s methods in her country and is determined to challenge this rite of passage.
Despite political disagreements and her family’s concerns, she refused military service and was sent to prison for her belief. Her courage inspires those around her to reconsider their own political positions and use their power to help mentalities change.
“Objector” follows Atalya into prison and beyond, offering a look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspective of a young woman who seeks the truth and stands for justice.

Molly STUART is a director, producer and film editor based in the San Francisco Bay area. She studied film at San Francisco State University.
Her films have won several awards.

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MÈRES

(MOTHERS)
62 minutes, 2020
Director : Myriam BAKIR (Morocco)
Production : Sedna Films (France), Abel Aflam (Morocco)
in coproduction with TV 2M (Morocco), Lyon Capitale TV (France), Ostinato Production (France)

In Morocco, single mothers can be sent to prison under article 490 of the penal code. Society treats them as outcasts. To protect them, Mahjouba Edbouche created Oum El Banine (mother of children) which welcomes pregnant unmarried women.
The director takes us through their daily lives in this shelter and shows us their journey, from their arrival here to the birth of a child, And sometimes reconciliation with their family.

Myriam BAKIR was born in Paris of Moroccan parents. She studied at the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français in Paris, followed by a training course in photography in the United States. Then came professional television experience in the West Indies. She has directed three short films.
“Samia” with Neza Rahil was broadcast on Canal Plus. It has also won the Audience Award at the Meknes Rencontres Cinématographiques and Best Actress Award at the Casablanca National Festival.
In 2011, her first feature “Agadir-Bombay” with Noufissa Benchehida, won the Best Actress Award at the Tangier National Film Festival. In this film about prostitution in Morocco, the director sees the issue from the woman’s point of view. Today her work is used as evidence with associations defending the rights of women and children. With the support of the Moroccan Ministry of National Education, it is regularly shown in schools.
“Mères” is Myriam BAKIR’s first documentary, set in the real world, following Mahjouba Edbouche, a woman committed to single mothers in Morocco. The film tackles the problem head-on: these women’s fate and the law which condemns them.

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CHAINED – AGORÁ II

90 minutes, 2020
Réalisation : Yorgos AVGEROPOULOS (Greece)
Production : SmallPlanet Productions (Greece)
in coproduction with Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) (Germany),
with the collaboration of Arte (Germany, France)

The Covid-19 pandemic is the third consecutive crisis on the European continent, after theEuropean debt crisis and the refugee emergency.For five years, journalist Yorgos Avgeropoulos has followed leading figures of the Greekgovernment as they confronted the EU’s demands for ever greater austerity, while in thecountry right-wing extremism exploded and refugees arrived in droves round the coasts.A virus had managed to expose not only the weaknesses of neoliberalism – a creed built onfaith in free markets and deregulation – but also the failure of European values.

Yorgos AVGEROPOULOS was born in Athens in 1971. He is a journalist and documentary film-maker. He has workedfor Greek TV channels. He was correspondent during the conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo andPalestine. In 2000 he created the series “Exandas”, with more than 100 documentaries which were broadcast on Greekpublic television and all over the world.Among his most recent films: “Jusqu’à la dernière goutte. La guerre secrète de l’eau en Europe” (2017), “Agora” (2015,selected for PriMed 2015 – the Festival of the Mediterranean in images), “The Lost Signal of Democracy” (2014, winnerof the Reportage Award at PriMed 2014), “People and Numbers” (2013), “El Sistema – Saving Lives” (2013), “GoldenTimes: Cassandra’s Treasure” (2012), “Black Vilva” (2012), “Charity, Diplomacy and Business” (2012), “The MidasEffect” (2011) and “Stealing from the Poor” (2011).

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ANALYSIS OF REGISTERED FILMS FOR PriMed 2020

Here you can find the analysis of the registered films for the 24th edition of PriMed. We received 397 films from 32 countries.
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