Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina

Mohammed LakhdarHamina born in Msila in 1934 is an Algerian film director and screenwriter He is best known for his 1975 film Chronicle of the Years of Fire He is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Arabic cinema Born in 1934 at MSila Algeria Lakhdar began his studies in his native country He first became interested in the world of cinema at the Lycée Carnot in Cannes France After beginning studies of agriculture and law at French universities he deserted the French Army in 1958 and joined the antiFrench Algerian Resistance in Tunisia where he worked for the provisional Algerian government in exile His film career began as he joined the Algerian Maquis guerrillas In 1959 the Algerian National Liberation Front FLN sent him to Prague where he pursued his cinematography studies at the cinema school Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague the Czech academy for cinema and television However he quit his studies in order to work for the Barrandov Studios In 1960 he joined the Service Cinema created by the Algerian government in exile In 1959 the Algerian ministry of information in exile commissioned LakhdarHamina together with Djamel Chanderli and Pierre Chaulet to produce a movie about Algerias predicament under French colonialism The documentary film titled Djazzaïrouna Our Algeria aimed at portraying the goals pursued by the Algerian nationalist guerrilla movement the Maquis In 1961 LakhdarHamina collaborated with Chanderli in the movie Yasmina which tells the story of a refugee girl who must flee her village following its destruction LakhdarHamina collaborated again with Chanderli in the 1962 The peoples voice and 1961 The guns of freedom Upon Algerian independence in 1962 he returned to his homeland where together with his colleagues from Tunisian exile he founded the Office des actualités algériennes of which he was director from 1963 until its dissolution in 1974 From 1981 until 1984 he acted as director of the Office National pour le Commerce et lIndustrie Cinématographique the most important institution for furtherance of the French film industry One of his most recent films The last image was part of the Official Selection at Cannes Film Festival in 1986 and was nominated for the Golden Palm LakhdarHaminas son Malik LakhdarHamina became well known after the release of his first long film Autumn October in Algiers 1992 a film that explores the riots of October 1988 through the microcosm of an Algerian family split by a Westernized versus Islamicized view of contemporary Algeria His other son Tariq LakhdarHamina is a film producer From its inception Algerian cinema was intertwined with the ideological and existential debates that surrounded the Algerian war of independence and the postcolonial nationbuilding stage In this context LakhdarHaminas cinematographic career has significantly contributed to the development of a new filmic language characteristic of contemporary Maghrebi cinema in general and Algerian in particular notably distinct from the filmic experiences of other Arab countries and most particularly of the Egyptian cinematic industry Source Article Mohammed LakhdarHamina from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30