Body language is the only one worth paying attention to in Mounia Meddour’s “Houria,” shown at Cairo Film Festival this week.
Her protagonist, a talented dancer, dreams of joining the Algerian National Ballet, but a violent attack leaves her broken – and mute. When she meets other women, all trying to overcome their own traumas, she starts developing her own choreography, inspired by sign language.
“In Algeria, people speak a lot. They want to explain everything. Here, it was all about trying to express things without words. We used bodies instead,” says the director, also behind the script.
“It’s their clandestine language. Only these women can understand it and they can use it to communicate with each other.”
Meddour’s idea mesmerized “Coda’s” Troy Kotsur, who joined the film as executive producer. But it also helped her examine the themes of sisterhood.
Mounia Meddour
“At the beginning of the movie,...
Her protagonist, a talented dancer, dreams of joining the Algerian National Ballet, but a violent attack leaves her broken – and mute. When she meets other women, all trying to overcome their own traumas, she starts developing her own choreography, inspired by sign language.
“In Algeria, people speak a lot. They want to explain everything. Here, it was all about trying to express things without words. We used bodies instead,” says the director, also behind the script.
“It’s their clandestine language. Only these women can understand it and they can use it to communicate with each other.”
Meddour’s idea mesmerized “Coda’s” Troy Kotsur, who joined the film as executive producer. But it also helped her examine the themes of sisterhood.
Mounia Meddour
“At the beginning of the movie,...
- 11/17/2022
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
American-Maltese Director Alex Camilleri’s debut feature film Luzzu is the story of Jesmark, a Maltese fisherman coming to terms with comprises he must make to his entrenched familial values. It’s part drama, part social-realist thriller and is anchored by a tremendous central performance by real-life fisherman Jesmark Scicluna. In addition to his protagonist, Camilleri continued his neo-realist approach in making Luzzu, casting non-actors across the entirety of his film which gives it a grounded authenticity. This authenticity is backed by Jon Natchez’s (of The War On Drugs and Beirut fame) score which begins with serene textures that underpin Jesmark’s life on the water before reflecting the building tension of his compromised ethics through pulsing electronic rhythms. Dn spoke with both Camilleri and Natchez ahead of Luzzu arriving in cinemas tomorrow to discuss the practicalities of Camilleri’s street casting process, his multi-role perspective as a creator,...
- 5/26/2022
- by James Maitre
- Directors Notes
Houria
Another Un Certain Regard breakout filmmaker, Mounia Meddour quietly began filming her sophomore film this past September on a project that reunited her with her Papicha (César Award for Best First Feature Film) stars Lyna Khoudri and Amira Hilda Douaouda. Filmed in Algeria and France, Houria pursues the female empowerment agenda looking at personal triumphant tussling with personal tragedy. Rachida Brakni stars as well. She reteams with cinematographer Léo Lefèvre (most recently worked on Luzzu) The Ink Connection’s Xavier Gens (Meddour’s hubby) and Gregoire Gensollen will produce with High Sea Productions’ Patrick André.
Gist: Khoudri stars as a young woman who is passionate about ballet dancing and experiences a trauma.…...
Another Un Certain Regard breakout filmmaker, Mounia Meddour quietly began filming her sophomore film this past September on a project that reunited her with her Papicha (César Award for Best First Feature Film) stars Lyna Khoudri and Amira Hilda Douaouda. Filmed in Algeria and France, Houria pursues the female empowerment agenda looking at personal triumphant tussling with personal tragedy. Rachida Brakni stars as well. She reteams with cinematographer Léo Lefèvre (most recently worked on Luzzu) The Ink Connection’s Xavier Gens (Meddour’s hubby) and Gregoire Gensollen will produce with High Sea Productions’ Patrick André.
Gist: Khoudri stars as a young woman who is passionate about ballet dancing and experiences a trauma.…...
- 1/12/2022
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
The sad spectacle of Brexit over the last five years has led many casual news-watchers to over-idealize the European Union, even as its uniform industry regulations and injunctions weigh harshly on a lot of innocent parties. A view from the other side comes in “Luzzu,” an honest, affecting slab of working-class portraiture, altogether bracing with its thorny labor politics and salty sea air.
Taking a close, tough view of a Maltese fisherman increasingly driven from the trade he loves by mounting economic strain — atop an unenviable pile-up of personal crises — this satisfying debut feature from Maltese-American writer-director-editor Alex Camilleri also places a welcome cinematic spotlight on an island nation more frequently seen on screen standing in for other Mediterranean or North African locales. Following a premiere in Sundance’s world cinema competition, “Luzzu” looks likely to be a new benchmark in Malta’s little-heralded film industry.
Camilleri’s previous credits...
Taking a close, tough view of a Maltese fisherman increasingly driven from the trade he loves by mounting economic strain — atop an unenviable pile-up of personal crises — this satisfying debut feature from Maltese-American writer-director-editor Alex Camilleri also places a welcome cinematic spotlight on an island nation more frequently seen on screen standing in for other Mediterranean or North African locales. Following a premiere in Sundance’s world cinema competition, “Luzzu” looks likely to be a new benchmark in Malta’s little-heralded film industry.
Camilleri’s previous credits...
- 2/2/2021
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
The list of films shot or produced on location in Malta is a short one, with the island’s shimmery Mediterranean beauty primarily the backdrop for swords-and-sandals epics. A rare locally-produced film that is also about Malta itself, and features actual Maltese people, “Luzzu” marks the debut of director Alex Camilleri with a vérité fishing drama populated by nonprofessional actors. , who also work with locals on their films, “Luzzu” is beautifully shot, if at times emotionally restrained, in its centering around a man who’s occasionally hard to read. But it boast a true discovery in the casting of Jesmark Scicluna, a real fisherman who plays a version of himself, and here playing a struggling parent trying to eke out a living along the docks.
A “luzzu” is a traditional Maltese fishing boat, and a veritable 20th-century relic compared to the more advanced trawlers of today. Jesmark’s luzzu, an...
A “luzzu” is a traditional Maltese fishing boat, and a veritable 20th-century relic compared to the more advanced trawlers of today. Jesmark’s luzzu, an...
- 1/29/2021
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Terrific lead characterizations and edgy camerawork hold their own against a problematic script in Mounia Meddour’s feature debut “Papicha.” This is a film designed to be championed by everyone wanting to support a woman’s right to self-expression: It’s got a female director (not a novelty in the Maghreb), depicts powerful young women refusing to bow down to fundamentalism, and is bursting with energy and likable figures. Yet the screenplay’s seams show so glaringly, and the finish is so tonally mismatched, that notwithstanding audience identification and the inevitable “loosely inspired by real events” tagline, “Papicha” feels conspicuously manipulative. That shouldn’t stall further fest play and Francophone distribution following the film’s Cannes premiere, though sales farther afield may prove more of a challenge.
The setting is Algiers in the 1990s, when the nation was roiled in a bloody civil war that pitted the less-than-democratic government against an increasingly violent Islamist insurgency.
The setting is Algiers in the 1990s, when the nation was roiled in a bloody civil war that pitted the less-than-democratic government against an increasingly violent Islamist insurgency.
- 5/18/2019
- by Jay Weissberg
- Variety Film + TV
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