Mohamed Lakhdar-Hamina

Mohamed Lakhdar-Hamina ( Arabic محمد الأخضر حمينة; * February 26, 1934 in M'Sila , Algeria ) is an Algerian film director and screenwriter who is one of the most outstanding personalities of contemporary Arab cinema. Central themes in his work are the promises and contradictions that resulted from the Algerian independence movement , to which he himself belonged at the end of the 1950s. He was the first filmmaker from the African continent to win the main prize at the Cannes Film Festival .

Life

childhood and education

Mohamed Lakhdar-Hamina was born in M'sila, northeast Algeria in 1934 (according to other sources on February 23, 1943). He grew up in the university town of Sétif and attended the École coloniale d'industrie in Dellys , but after a year he switched to the École d'agriculture in Guelma . His academic education in Algeria was interrupted by the colonial war (1954–1962), which is why he had to continue this in southern France. He attended the École d'horticulture in Antibes , which he left without a degree. Lakhdar-Hamina then visited the Lycée Carnot in Cannes , where his interest in cinema was aroused by a fellow student whose father was a cameraman. He then began studying law in the university town of Aix-en-Provence .

In 1958 Lakhdar-Hamina was drafted into military service in France, but deserted after two months in order to join the Algerian resistance movement in Tunis . On behalf of the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN), the national liberation front that fought for the independence of Algeria from France, he studied a year later at the Faculty of Film and Television of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague , where among other things Jaromil Jireš , Evald Schorm and Věra Chytilová were his fellow students . He gave up his film studies in favor of practical activities in the Barrandov film studio , where he became familiar with camera work. Lakhdar-Hamina later returned to Tunis. There he joined the Service Cinéma of the Algerian government-in-exile (GPRA), founded in 1960, and was involved in the production of Djamel Chanderli's films Yasmina , La Voix du peuple (both 1961) and Les Fusils de la liberté (1962), all of which involved the Algerian War have on the subject.

First directorial work

After Algeria gained independence in 1962, Lakhdar-Hamina and his former companions from Tunis set up the Office des Actualités Algériennes (OAA), which he headed until it was closed in 1974. Among other things, the OAA published current weekly magazines and produced Lakhdar-Hamina's first own film projects in the early 1960s, which consisted mainly of documentaries. In these the director tried to denounce the living conditions of the Algerian people. Also in 1962, work on the screenplay for François Sluc's short film Sous le signe de Neptune (also known as Au royaume de Neptune ) fell. With Sluc, his mentor at the time, Lakhdar-Hamina also made the two short films Île d'Homère and Les trésors de Mahdia , which won a prize at the Venice Film Festival . 1964 followed with Le temps d'une image, his first own short film as sole director and screenwriter, which he prepared in two versions for television and cinema.

One year after Gillo Pontecorvo's Battle for Algiers (1965), which became the first major post-colonial film production in Algeria, Lakhdar-Hamina made his feature film debut with The Wind Comes from Aures (1966). The drama, which traces the ordeal of an Algerian mother (played by Keltoum) during French colonial rule, was the first work by an Algerian filmmaker to receive international acclaim. The Wind Comes from Aures was featured in the 1967 Cannes Film Festival competition . Lakhdar-Haminas was technically and aesthetically inspired by Soviet cinema and especially by Olexandr Dowschenko in the award of the Grand Prix against Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow Up, which was later cultically revered , but received the award for the best first work. In 1967, Hassan terro Lakhdar-Hamina's second feature film followed, in which he takes on a fearful middle-class Algerian (played by Rouïched) who ends up at the heart of the revolution. Contrary to expectations, he is mistaken for a dangerous terrorist.

1970s and triumph in Cannes

The 1972 drama December , in which Lakhdar-Hamina was inspired by the fate of his father, who died during the Algerian War, was of autobiographical origin . The focal point of the film, which harshly criticizes French colonial policy and condemns torture of all kinds, is a leader of the Algerian liberation movement FLN, who is captured by the French in December 1960. In order to force him to collaborate, a colonel (played by Michel Auclair ) has hostages executed in front of his eyes, but only in appearance, since the French himself is plagued by remorse. Only in retrospect does it become apparent that the officers contravened the order and actually killed. The stubbornly silent FLN leader must also suffer the same fate.

The high point of Lakhdar-Hamina's film career was his fourth feature film Chronicle of the Years of Embers (1975), with which he was represented for the second time in the competition at the Cannes Film Festival after 1967. The almost three-hour long chronicle of the development of Algeria from 1939 to the outbreak of the revolution in 1954, illustrated by the fate of a poor Algerian family, had already received praise from the specialist critics in advance and was considered the favorite of the golden palm . In fact, the jury, chaired by French actress Jeanne Moreau, awarded the film the main prize of the festival. Lakhdar-Hamina prevailed against such well-known directors as Michelangelo Antonioni ( profession: reporter ), Werner Herzog ( everyone for himself and God against all ) or Martin Scorsese ( Alice no longer lives here ). It was the first time that an African filmmaker was able to triumph in Cannes (it wasn't until 2013 that another director from Africa won the main prize in Cannes with blue is a warm color by the native Tunisian Abdellatif Kechiche ).

In Germany too, Lakhdar-Hamina's film met with a positive response. In its contemporary criticism, the film-dienst praised Chronicle of the Years of Embers as "an artistically remarkable historical epic about the liberation struggle of the Algerian people". However, Lakhdar-Hamina repeatedly denied having made a historical film: “My film is only a personal idea, even if it refers to precise facts. I never claimed to give an overall picture of the whole of Algeria in this historical period, especially since I lived in a small village. "

In the same year, Lakhdar-Hamina's directorial work was selected as Algeria's official contribution for an Oscar nomination in the category of Best Foreign Language Film , but could not make it into the five nominated films.

End of the film career

After the success of Chronicle of Years and the Embers , Lakhdar-Hamina became chairman of the Office national cinématographique des industries du cinéma (ONCIC), the national agency for the Algerian film industry. A year later, in the feature film Vent de sable (1982), he again focused on an Algerian family who tried to brave the desert storms with a palm plantation. For this and his last film, the youth film La dernière image (1986; Eng .: “The last picture”), he received an invitation to the Cannes Film Festival. In this, the French Véronique Jannot plays the main role of a young and attractive teacher who becomes the object of desire of a Jewish colleague (played by Michel Boujenah ) and an Algerian boy (Merwan Lakhdar-Hamina) in an Algerian village .

Dubbed a kind of Algerian David Lean because of his lavish and expensive film productions , Lakhdar-Hamina is still considered the most energetic filmmaker in his home country. In addition to working as a film director and screenwriter, Lakhdar-Hamina produced the award-winning films Remparts d'argile (1968) and Le Bal - Der Tanzpalast (1983) by Jean-Louis Bertuccelli and Ettore Scola, respectively . The Algerian filmmaker also took on acting roles in his film productions ( Chronicle of the Years of Embers , La dernière image ) and also used his son Malik, born in 1962, in December and La dernière image . Malik Lakhdar-Hamina followed in his father's footsteps in 1993 and directed the family drama October in Algiers , which two years later was submitted as the official Algerian entry for an Oscar nomination in the category of Best Foreign Language Film .

Lakhdar-Hamina drew himself into the memory of the French public in February 2003 when he took a position on the Iraq crisis at an event in Bucharest and highlighted the position of French President Jacques Chirac vis-à-vis the United States and calling it “Robin Hood of the Arab countries and of the Third World ” . In the same year, a digitally revised version of his successful film Chronicle of the Years of Embers was shown at the Cannes Film Festival . In 2007 Lakhdar-Hamina was honored with a series of homages at the Paris Institute du monde arabe , at the 60th Cannes Film Festival , at the first international du Film arabe festival in Oran and at the Cairo International Film Festival . In 2014 he returned as director, producer and screenwriter with the feature film Crépuscule des ombres , which was Algeria's official entry for an Oscar nomination in the category Best Foreign Language Film in 2016 .

In 2017 he was accepted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which awards the Oscars every year.

Filmography (selection)

• 1963: Promesse de juillet (documentary film)
• 1963: Lumière pour tous (documentary film)
• 1963: Une fois de plus (documentary film)
• 1963: Tu cherches la science (documentary)
• 1964: Guerre aux taudis (documentary)
• 1964: La campagne de l'arbre (documentary film)
• 1964: Prends soin (documentary)
• 1964: Le temps d'une image (short film)
• 1964: Mais un jour de novembre (documentary film)
• 1966: The wind comes from Aures (Rih al awras)
• 1967: Hassan terro
• 1972: December (Décembre)
• 1975: Chronicle of the Years of Embers (Chronique des années de braise)
• 1982: Vent de sable
• 1983: Le Bal - The Dance Palace (Le Bal)
• 1986: La dernière image
• 2014: Crépuscule des ombres

Awards

Cannes International Film Festival

• 1967: Award for the best first work and nominated for the Grand Prix for Der Wind ist von Aures
• 1975: Golden Palm for Chronicle of the Years of Embers
• 1982: nominated for the Palme d'Or for Vent de sable
• 1986: nominated for the Palme d'Or for La dernière image

Moscow International Film Festival

• 1967: nominated for the Grand Prix for The Wind Comes from Aures

literature

• Nadia El Kenz: L'odyssée des cinémathéques: la cinémathèque algérienne; à la recherche d'une mémoire perdue (de Méliès à M. Lakhdar Hamina) . Editions ANEP, [Algiers] 2003, ISBN 978-9961-768-30-3 .
• Hubert Corbin, Michèle Driguez: Cinéma méditerranéen: actes des 8èmes Rencontres de Montpellier, 31 octobre-9 novembre 1986 . Fédération des oeuvres laïques de l'Hérault, Montpellier 1987

Web links

• Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Official website (now closed) of Mohamed Lakhdar-Hamina and Malik Lakhdar-Hamina with film profiles and trailers (English; accessed May 1, 2008)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} cf. Muhammad Lakhdar-Hamina . In: Biographical Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa . Gale, 2008 (accessed via Biography Resource Center . Farmington Hills, Mich .: Gale, 2009)
2. ↑ cf. Hamina, Mohammed Lakdar . In: Simon, Reeva S .: Encyclopedia of the modern Middle East . New York [u. a.]: Simon & Schuster [u. a.], 1996. (accessed on March 14, 2010 via World Biographical Information System )
3. ↑ ^{a b c} cf. Biography ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at dilap.com (French; accessed on May 2, 2008) 
4. ↑ ^{a b} cf. Profile at evene.fr (French; accessed on May 2, 2008)
5. ↑ ^{a b} cf. Mohamed Lakhdar-Hamina . In: Leaman, Oliver (Ed.): Companion Encyclopedia of Middle Eastern and North African Film . London [u. a.]: Routledge, 2001. - ISBN 0-415-18703-6 (accessed on March 14, 2010 via World Biographical Information System )
6. ↑ ^{a b} cf. Biography ( Memento of the original from April 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at algeriades.com (French; accessed May 2, 2008) 
7. ↑ cf. Algeria . In: Encyclopaedia Britannica 2008 Ultimate Reference Suite . Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2008.
8. ↑ See Algeria wins Grand Prix award at Cannes festival . In: The Times , May 24, 1975, issue 59404, p. 4.
9. ↑ See Lexicon of International Films 2000/2001 (CD-ROM).
10. ↑ Interview with Mouloud Mimoun. In: el-Moudjahid , June 27, 1975 (accessed on March 14, 2010 via the World Biographical Information System ).
11. ↑ cf. Movie Profile (English, called on May 2, 2008) at the official website Lakhdar Hamina-(now closed)
12. ↑ cf. Profile ( Memento of the original from December 1, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from October in Algiers and Malik Lakhdar-Hamina at cinemed-tm.fr (French; accessed on May 1, 2008) 
13. ↑ cf. Mohamed Lakhdar Hamina: "Jacques Chirac, Robin des bois des Arabes" . Agence France Presse, February 22, 2003, Informations générales, Bucarest
14. ↑ "Class of 2017". Accessed June 30, 2017. http://www.app.oscars.org/class2017/ .