French-Palestinian-Algerian filmmaker Lina Soualem, whose documentary “Bye Bye Tiberias,” that includes her mom Hiam Abbas (“Succession”), launched positively from Venice and Toronto, is about to make her characteristic movie debut with “Alicante,” a drama starring her sister Mouna Soualem (“Oussekine”) as a younger girl on an existential journey that takes her to Spain.
After exploring her Algerian grandparents’ break-up within the doc “Their Algeria” and delving into how Hiam Abbas and her household had been displaced from the town of Tiberias by the 1948 Arab-Israeli warfare in “Bye Bye Tiberias,” Soualem will now be placing a considerably lighter story on display screen, albeit one which continues her exploration of “questions of belonging and transmission and exiles between generations” and “discovering your house on the earth,” as she places it.
In “Alicante” Mouna Soualem will play Assia, a 32-year-old Franco-Algerian photographer, who has simply damaged up along with her long-time American accomplice, with whom she had been dwelling in New York Metropolis.
After returning to Paris, the place she was raised, she is hurting and begins to look at her need to have a baby. “To flee such existential questions, she decides to hitch her household in Spain, the place her mother and father have not too long ago invested in a restaurant in a preferred seaside resort close to the town of Alicante,” says the offered synopsis. “Arriving on the airport in Alicante, Assia has no concept what she’s in for,” the synopsis provides. “What was meant to be a household trip turns right into a rescue operation for a fragile enterprise and a shaky household equilibrium.”
“Alicante,” which is at present in growth, is being produced by Paris-based Straightforward Riders Movies, which is run by Omar El Kadi and Nadia Turincev. The venture is being unveiled to potential companions on the Marrakech Movie Competition’s Atlas Workshops, mentored by U.S. director Jeff Nichols.
In Marrakech, Lina Soualem spoke to Selection about how making the transition from docs to fiction filmmaking will free her from the constraints of “actuality” and why Alicante and Algeria are related.
“Alicante” appears to attach thematically together with your earlier work. Do you agree?
Sure. For me, regardless that it’s a primary fiction, it’s a movie by which I carry on exploring themes that I’ve explored in my earlier work, my earlier documentaries. They’re questions of belonging and transmission and exiles between generations, and looking for your house while you come from exilic experiences: discovering your house on the earth. Particularly as a lady, as a mom, as a daughter. As a result of the principle character is a younger girl in her thirties and she or he shall be interacting along with her household, however particularly with the ladies of her household. So it’s mixing the Algerian id that I explored in my first movie and the bond between ladies that I explored in my second movie. I used to be actually desperate to make the transition to fiction with one thing that I’m accustomed to, whereas having the ability to have some freedom. Fiction permits me to place apart the load of actuality that was very current in my documentaries due to the tragic collective reminiscence of Algeria as a individuals; Palestine as a individuals; and the colonial context of each.
The synopsis says that “The Algerian household feels proper at house within the acquainted topography of the area.” Might you elaborate on the connection between Algeria and Alicante?
Certain. It’s simply that, when it comes to panorama, Alicante is similar to West Algeria and the area of Oran. Really Oran is going through Alicante. It’s a ship trip that folks do loads. It’s 300 kilometers, so it’s very fast. And there’s quite a lot of Algerian immigration there. So you possibly can see quite a lot of outlets with Arabic writing and also you see quite a lot of Algerian cultural locations and eating places and issues like that. So it’s acquainted to Algerians, whereas being completely different as a result of it’s nonetheless Spain. And I believe it’s attention-grabbing as a result of it’s a really Spanish place, in fact, however has quite a lot of references to Algerian tradition as nicely. And the cohabitation of each affords a visible distinction that’s actually attention-grabbing for me. However Alicante additionally permits me to distance myself from the presupposed or overused or over stigmatized opposition between France and Algeria. Algerians are at all times perceived by means of a really stigmatizing neo-colonial prism, and their relationship with France – whether or not it’s a fantasy or actual. And I really feel that transferring the themes to a extra impartial territory that doesn’t have such a heavy previous, with the Algerian descendants of colonists, permits me to provide them again the fitting complexity and offers me extra freedom in the best way that I need them to maneuver within the areas and the territory.
