It’s an L year! As well as Lion and Luke, Lotfi was put forward for an Academy Award.
Image: Algerian Cinema. Ruby on set with legend filmmaker Ahmedi Rachdi, with Lotfi Bouchouchi in the studio at Canal Algérie and on the cinema program Travelling.
The Well (Le Puits) was nominated by Algeria to represent at the Academy Awards. Algerian filmmaker Lotfi Bouchouchi’s feature drama set during the Algerian Independent war was put forward for the category of best Foreign Film. The Well takes place in a dry southern village during the war with the French army trying to force out the villagers who they believe to be hiding key players, through thirst.
I saw the film in Bouchouchi’s office in Algiers on antibiotics while suffering from hideous doses of bronchitis and frustration and it put things into perspective for a moment! It deserves to be widely distributed.
The film shows the horrors of the war from the perspective of simple villagers- men, women and children who are just thirsty and wanting to survive. While the plot from writer Yacine Benelhadji is simple, it’s clever with the trading of a cigarette to a child the metaphor of the wider, dirtier sides of the pollutions of colonisers and the domino effect.
Co-produced by the ex cultural agency AARC, The Well (Les Puits) has already been awarded at various festivals including the Muscate Film Festival (Oman), The Mediterranean film festival of Alexandria (Egypt) and the took out the Grand Prix at the Oujda Maghreb Film Festival (Morocco).
The Well stars Nadia Kaci, Laurent Maurel, Ourais Achour, Mohamed Adar, Hania Amar, Djamila Bahr, Abdelkader Slimani , Slimi Slimane, Nadjib Djendi and Mouni Bouallam (who covered Cairo Film Festival with Ruby TV), was vividly shot by Hazem Berrabah authentically and beautifully costumed by Hamida Amzai and edited by Noura Nefzi. Original score was from Cédric Perras.
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