Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina Movies, TV Shows, and Filmography
Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina
Directing
Biography
Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina (26 February 1934 – 23 May 2025) was an Algerian film director and screenwriter. He is best known for his 1975 film Chronicle of the Years of Fire, which won the Palme d'Or at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival and became the first Arab and African film to win the award. He is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Arabic cinema. Born on 26 February 1934 at M'Sila, 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 anti-French 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. Also in 1959, the Algerian ministry of information in exile commissioned Lakhdar-Hamina, together with Djamel Chanderli and Pierre Chaulet, to produce a movie about Algeria's 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 1960, he joined the Service Cinema, created by the Algerian government in exile. In 1961, Lakhdar-Hamina collaborated with Chanderli in the movie Yasmina, which tells the story of a refugee girl who must flee her village following its destruction. Lakhdar-Hamina collaborated again with Chanderli in the 1962 The people's 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 l'Industrie 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. Lakhdar-Hamina's son, Malik Lakhdar-Hamina, 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 Lakhdar-Hamina, is a film producer. On 23 May 2025, Lakhdar-Hamina died in his home in Algiers, at the age of 91. From its inception, Algerian cinema was intertwined with the ideological and existential debates that surrounded the Algerian war of independence and the postcolonial nation-building stage. ... Source: Article "Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
Filmography Movies
Acting
An Officer and a Spy
In 1894, French Captain Alfred Dreyfus is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at the Devil’s Island penal colony.
Arab Camera
Focusing on key Arab films produced in the last 20 years. Férid Boughedir traces the development of the film-makers' concern to produce more socially aware cinema. Themes include the issue of Palestinian homeland rights and the nature of Arab identity. The film-makers also share a desire to develop a strong poetic tradition.
Chronicle of the Years of Fire
A meticulous chronicle of the evolution of the Algerian national movement from 1939 until the outbreak of the revolution on November 1, 1954, the film unequivocally demonstrates that the "Algerian War" is not an accident of history, but a slow process of suffering and warlike revolts, uninterrupted, from the start of colonization in 1830, until this "Red All Saints' Day" of November 1, 1954. At its center, Ahmed gradually awakens to political awareness against colonization, under the gaze of his son, a symbol of the new Algeria, and that of Miloud, half-mad haranguer, half-prophet, incarnation of Popular memory of the revolt, the liberation of Algeria and its people.
Last Image
Seen through the filtered lens of boyhood memories, award-winning director Mohamed Lakhdar-Hamina crafted this half-fictional, half-autobiographical account of a brief period in the history of an Algerian village. It is 1940, and the quiet town is ruled by French colonialists appointed by the Vichy government. Algerians are being called up for service in the Vichy military, and Jews in the village are in danger of deportation. A beautiful young schoolteacher named Claire Boyer (Veronique Jannot) arrives in town and turns every male head within miles, including 14-year-old Mouloud (Merwan Lakhdar-Hamina, the director's son). Simon Attal (Michel Boujenah), a fellow teacher and a Jew, is also attracted to Claire, and so is Mouloud's older brother. Suddenly two murders occur in the village, Simon is in danger of being deported, and the tone shifts from the dreams of boyhood to the realities of manhood.
One Hero, The People
Adam Bensoltane takes us through the birth of Algerian cinema, in his native country, across the ages, exploring its evolution and its impact on the nation, politics, and the world.
De droomproducenten
Documentary exploring why Belgian television doesn't invest more money in Belgian cinema as is the case in e.g. the netherlands.
Production
Chronicle of the Years of Fire
A meticulous chronicle of the evolution of the Algerian national movement from 1939 until the outbreak of the revolution on November 1, 1954, the film unequivocally demonstrates that the "Algerian War" is not an accident of history, but a slow process of suffering and warlike revolts, uninterrupted, from the start of colonization in 1830, until this "Red All Saints' Day" of November 1, 1954. At its center, Ahmed gradually awakens to political awareness against colonization, under the gaze of his son, a symbol of the new Algeria, and that of Miloud, half-mad haranguer, half-prophet, incarnation of Popular memory of the revolt, the liberation of Algeria and its people.
Chronicle of the Years of Fire
A meticulous chronicle of the evolution of the Algerian national movement from 1939 until the outbreak of the revolution on November 1, 1954, the film unequivocally demonstrates that the "Algerian War" is not an accident of history, but a slow process of suffering and warlike revolts, uninterrupted, from the start of colonization in 1830, until this "Red All Saints' Day" of November 1, 1954. At its center, Ahmed gradually awakens to political awareness against colonization, under the gaze of his son, a symbol of the new Algeria, and that of Miloud, half-mad haranguer, half-prophet, incarnation of Popular memory of the revolt, the liberation of Algeria and its people.
Sawt Echaâb
“La Voix du Peuple,” composed of archival photographs by René Vauthier and others, exposes the root causes of the armed conflict of the Algerian resistance. Participating in a war of real images against French colonial propaganda, these images aimed to show the images that the occupier had censored or distorted, by showing the extortions of the French occupation army: torture, arrests and arbitrary executions, napalm bombings, roundabout fires, erasing entire villages from the map, etc. This is what the French media described as a “pacification campaign”.
Hassan Terro
While he tries by all means to stay out of the bloody upheavals caused by the battle of Algiers, Hassan, an honest and naive father, unknowingly offers hospitality to a mujahid actively sought by the army. French. A series of events and misunderstandings quickly catapult him to the forefront, presenting him under the pseudonym “Hassan Terro”, a great fictitious terrorist who would have sworn the doom of the French army...
The Winds of the Aures
The transformations of the daily life of the Algerian people during the destructive French occupation, then during the war of liberation. While military repression is in full swing, a peasant woman finds herself alone in her mountain home when her only son is kidnapped by French soldiers shortly after her husband's death during a raid. One day, seeing a dead chicken, which she considers a bad omen, she decides to leave home and embarks on a painful journey through the mountains. Accompanied by a couple of chickens, she moves from one detention camp to another in a desperate search for her missing son. The film is inspired by the events experienced by the director's family.
Chronicle of the Years of Fire
A meticulous chronicle of the evolution of the Algerian national movement from 1939 until the outbreak of the revolution on November 1, 1954, the film unequivocally demonstrates that the "Algerian War" is not an accident of history, but a slow process of suffering and warlike revolts, uninterrupted, from the start of colonization in 1830, until this "Red All Saints' Day" of November 1, 1954. At its center, Ahmed gradually awakens to political awareness against colonization, under the gaze of his son, a symbol of the new Algeria, and that of Miloud, half-mad haranguer, half-prophet, incarnation of Popular memory of the revolt, the liberation of Algeria and its people.
Frozen Image
A poetic essay. An Algerian soldier wanders through Algiers and the countryside, whilst a voiceover of the soldier's mother laments his death.
Frozen Image
A poetic essay. An Algerian soldier wanders through Algiers and the countryside, whilst a voiceover of the soldier's mother laments his death.
Frozen Image
A poetic essay. An Algerian soldier wanders through Algiers and the countryside, whilst a voiceover of the soldier's mother laments his death.
Last Image
Seen through the filtered lens of boyhood memories, award-winning director Mohamed Lakhdar-Hamina crafted this half-fictional, half-autobiographical account of a brief period in the history of an Algerian village. It is 1940, and the quiet town is ruled by French colonialists appointed by the Vichy government. Algerians are being called up for service in the Vichy military, and Jews in the village are in danger of deportation. A beautiful young schoolteacher named Claire Boyer (Veronique Jannot) arrives in town and turns every male head within miles, including 14-year-old Mouloud (Merwan Lakhdar-Hamina, the director's son). Simon Attal (Michel Boujenah), a fellow teacher and a Jew, is also attracted to Claire, and so is Mouloud's older brother. Suddenly two murders occur in the village, Simon is in danger of being deported, and the tone shifts from the dreams of boyhood to the realities of manhood.
Gallery
