Film screening
‘Ali au Pays des Merveilles’ - Djouhra Abouda & Alain Bonnamy

Halaqat Film Days - Past and Present of Arab Societies through Women’s Lenses

Sun, 20.11.2022
6:00 PM - 19:15 Bozar

This autumn, Halaqat Film Days celebrates the old and the new generation of Arab women directors and actresses. Visitors will discover recent films and productions from the past thanks to a programme that creates a dialogue between the works and the different generations of women directors. 

‘Ali au Pays des Merveilles’ - Djouhra Abouda & Alain Bonnamy (1975/76): 
In this experimental, political and radical film about the experience of immigrant workers in France in the mid-1970s, Ali Aux Pays des Merveilles calls out the exploitation and racism it ascribes to the French state, the media, capitalism and colonisation. Shot in 16mm, the film combines a formal and aesthetic inventiveness with a powerful militant purpose, through the direct dialogue of marginalised people.

Born in a village in the Djurdjura mountains in Kabylia (Algeria) in the late 1940s, Djouhra Abouda (1949) arrived in France with her father at the age of five. In the 1980s she founded the Djurdjura group, with whom she produced several music albums before devoting herself to her solo career. In the 1970s, Djouhra Abouda produced and directed three film projects with architect Alain Bonnamy (1947): Algérie couleurs (1970-1972), Cinécité (1973-1974) et Ali au pays des Merveilles (1975-1976).

The European project Halaqat is implemented by the Goethe-Institut in collaboration with Bozar - Centre for Fine Arts Brussels. Halaqat is co-funded by the European Commission (under the designation: EU-LAS CULTURE), the Goethe-Institut and Bozar.