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The Director and Author of Movie


I read some info about the director and author of the book this movie was based on. He has written more books.

I found it interesting that even though he was a product of this culture, Berbers of North Africa - they aren't Arabs and were the indigenous peoples of North Africa and speak a different language that originates from ancient Egyptian and Ethopian languages, he chooses to expose the negative aspects of his culture about Berber women life experiences. This movie was also a journey and closure for himself. He left as a young man with his family to move to France so his father could find employment. This was his first time returning. Here is in his own words what he felt about this movie and his experience making it. Does anyone else have any other knowledge about his other books, movies or him?

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DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

I want to go back there, but why? Simply to go back, or to shoot a film? My profession has conditioned me to confuse reality with fiction:

I’m losing my way. I want to return to this rocky mountain like an exile, for the last time. I don’t belong there any more; the link was broken when I discovered that death demands no special place. I am returning like a lover saying farewell to the woman who has rejected him.

I invite you on my journey to discover this beloved woman, this mountain which has revealed me. She is merciless.

Only he who abandons everything to her - his dreams, his desires – can withstand her. Him she loves, he lives in harmony with her.

All others, seduced by illusions and an easier life, must flee to the city.

I will visit those who remain. The last survivors. The road from the housing projects of the city back to the South of my birth is long.

As I get closer, after thirty-five years of separation, I am seized by anxiety. I know that nothing there will prevent me from leaving again, not the extraordinary desert mountain itself, lunar and magical, not its scents, not the
beauty of its women, not the sweet taste of sun-ripened fruits . . .

The myth of returning is finished; the city has become my home. The furrow it has carved in me, where memories sprout and flourish, has erased a painful childhood scarred by war and the absence of my father.

So why return there, and why film there? To say goodbye to this terrible mountain; and to reveal it to you, to show you those who remain, despite the fighting, despite fear of tyranny, despite drought, despite the heavy yoke of
tradition, of scorching heat and of the silence forced upon women.

This is a story about women . . .


BIOGRAPHY

Mehdi Charef was born in Maghnia, Algeria in 1952. His father left for France, to work in road construction, and sent for his family when Mehdi was about 10.
The Charef children grew up in the complex world of émigrés, in the ghettos and slums around Paris.

Mehdi trained as a mechanic, and worked in a factory until his first novel Le Thé au Harem d’Archimède (Tea in the Harem) was published in 1983. He later adapted his novel into a feature film under the famous filmmaker Constantin Costa-Gavras. Charef received many awards for this inaugural effort. Since then, he has made numerous feature films, most often creating character
portraits of women. He currently lives in France and continues his work as a novelist and filmmaker.

Mehdi Charef was born in 1952 in Maghnia, Algeria, where he lived until his family left in the early 1960s to live in France, where he was trained as a mechanic and worked in a factory. In 1983, his first novel Le Thé au Harem d'Archimíde ("Tea in the Harem") was published. The book was soon optioned by filmmaker Constantin Costa-Gavras and made into a film, winning a Cesar, the Jean Vigo and SOS Racisme prizes, the Silver Hugo in Chicago, and the Special Jury Prize at the Madrid International Film Festival. Charef's films, La Maison d'Alexina (1999) and Pigeon vole (1996), were adapted from his novels of the same name. Medhi Charef currently lives in France and continues his work as a novelist and filmmaker.

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