The Desert Divers

Jan 1, 1952

0h 21m

★ 10.0

Overview

Les Plongeurs Du Désert, directed by Tahar Hannache in 1952, is considered the first entirely Algerian fiction film. It tells the story of the inhabitants of an oasis whose well has dried up. The village elder, Sheikh Messaoud, calls upon the renowned desert divers, artisans specializing in clearing sand- and silt-filled wells, to restore access to the vital water for the community. After their intervention, the water begins to flow again, bringing relief to the oasis and its inhabitants. The film depicts the contrast between the traditional techniques of the divers, embodied by Sheikh Ali and his son Mansour, and the arrival of modernity, represented by the machine that ultimately replaces their craft. This story symbolizes the marginalization of local knowledge in the face of technological progress and the social injustice of the colonial era.

Genres

Drama

Production Companies

Les Films Tahar Hannache

The Desert Divers Trailers

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Cast

Cheikh Ali

Himoud Brahimi

Mansour

Djamel-Eddine Chanderli

The Second World War. French authorities ban political parties and unions. In Algeria, the leaders of political and trade union organizations were arrested and interned in "surveillance" camps with more than 2,000 French and foreigners: communist activists, trade unionists, brigadists, Spanish republicans and other opponents of the Vichy regime. The Djenien Bourezg camp is one of these camps, located in southern Algeria and is one of the most formidable. An old activist for the Algerian national cause returns to the scene. He blows away the ashes that cover this part of history. And through it, we discover the hard fight of the camp inmates for respect and human dignity, under a fascist command.

10.0

Rose Of The Desert

Jan 2, 1989

An oasis lost in the Saharan desert more than 700km from Algiers. A society still functioning on centuries-old rituals. The only connection to the city is a bus that passes once a day. Moussa, disabled from birth, lives there with his sister Zineb; They try, together, to reconstitute a family unit that the war has destroyed. The family is the dream of the idyllic times of childhood, of times when parents took all the responsibilities. Moussa is perfectly independent, although he has no arms, he nevertheless loves being cared for by his sister. Zineb, for her part, does not dare to face the new world that a marriage would constitute. Life passes punctuated by the same gestures. Zineb takes the bus to go to work at the date packaging factory. Moussa goes to see the schoolmaster, draws or dreams of Mériem, the woman he loves. A rose secretly grows in the sand, which Moussa waters every day.

7.0

Nahla

Jan 2, 1979

After the battle of Kfar Chouba in Lebanon in January 1975, Larbi Nasri, a young Algerian journalist, was caught in the whirlwind of events preceding the civil war. Linked to Maha, Hind, Raouf and Michel who surround Nahla, he witnesses the construction of the myth of Nahla, a singer adored by the Arab population. One day Nahla loses her voice on stage. The atmosphere of crisis that reigns around her is spreading like an infection. Larbi, fascinated, loses his footing and gets bogged down.

4.5

Isabelle Eberhardt

Nov 21, 1991

The true story of explorer, journalist and writer Isabelle Eberhardt, originally from Switzerland. She moved to Annaba in Algeria in 1897 with her mother, who preferred to live in the Algerian neighborhoods rather than the European neighborhoods that she hated, and converted to Islam. Her lifestyle shocked the French colonialists: she dressed like a man, frequented cafes and smoke shops. Fascinated by the desert, she traveled the Sahara under the identity of Si Mahmoud, she published articles and books on the world she discovered in southern Algeria, strongly criticizing the colonial authorities. Arriving in El Oued, the soldiers prevent him from continuing his journey. She disobeys and overhears officers shooting Arab prisoners. Arrested, she was accused of espionage and was expelled from Algeria. She married Slimane, a Muslim non-commissioned officer in 1901. Having become French through this marriage, she could now reside in Algeria.

10.0

The Man Who Was Looking at the Windows

Jan 1, 1985

A police office in Algiers sometime after independence. Mr Rachid, father, around fifty years old, former colonial official transferred to the cinema annex library. Mr. Rachid, disappointed and exasperated by his sad life, faced with an inspector who questions him, tries to explain: why did he kill his former department head after a long night of wandering?

10.0

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Jan 1, 1996

60 years ago, in the Algerian desert, an atomic bomb, equivalent to three or even four times Hiroshima, exploded. Named the “Blue Gerboise”, it was the first atomic bomb tested by France, and of hitherto unrivaled power. This 70 kiloton plutonium bomb was launched in the early morning, in the Reggane region, in southern Algeria, during the French colonial era. If this test allowed France to become the 4th nuclear power in the world, it had catastrophic repercussions. France had, at the time, certified that the radiation was well below the standard safety threshold. However, in 2013, declassified files revealed that the level of radioactivity had been much higher than announced, and had been recorded from West Africa to the south of Spain.

5.0

A Son of the Sahara

Apr 13, 1924

As a boy, Raoul is reared by an Arab tribe in Algerian Sahara. Years later, as a refined Europeanized gentleman, he falls in love with Barbara, an officer's daughter, who rejects him when she discovers his background. Affecting a raid, he captures her and then secretly buys her at a slave auction. When she is rescued by French troops, however, his ancestry is established and they find happiness together.

10.0

One Roof, One Family

Feb 7, 1982

Selim Mechoubine, a young man of 28, is the eldest of a large family. In the cramped accommodation he shares with his parents, brothers and sisters... he occupies the kitchen, the refuge of his dreams and his many fantasies. Selim, the court clerk where divorcing couples parade..., wants to get married. His mother finds him “the rare pearl”. But now, the bride's family demands that the couple have their own home... Selim's misadventure begins; he finds himself confronted with the problems of the housing crisis which forces him to begin a long quest, procedures, requests to find the sine qua non condition for his marriage.

10.0

Sahara Blues

Jun 2, 1991

Mounya doesn't like the desert, and she doesn't like Majid either, but she agreed to go with him for the weekend to southern Algeria. Rabah Bouberras directs an intimate film which tells the story of a woman taking stock of her past and present during a trip to the south of Algeria with her son and her second husband.

6.0

The Call

May 1, 1936

The story of Charles de Foucauld, born September 15, 1858 in Strasbourg (France) and died December 1, 1916 in Tamanrasset in Algeria during the French colonial period, was a cavalry officer of the French army who became an explorer and geographer, then Catholic religious, priest, linguist and hermit in the Hoggar desert in Algeria.

10.0

Boualem Zid El Goudam

Jan 1, 1980

Two travelers, Boualem and Sekfali, cross the hostile and endless desert. Boualem pulls a cart on which old books, pictures, relics and memories of Sekfali are piled up. Two men, two attitudes towards life, two visions of the world. Where do they come from, where are they going? The journey would be completely calm and happy if each of them were not inhabited by their pasts, determining their different visions of the future. Boualem's childhood was marked by the Algerian war of liberation. His dream is to achieve a socialist society, which is for him the only path to salvation. Sekfali, who tries to dissuade Boualem from continuing the journey, has the attitude of an aristocrat. For him, socialism is a heresy and people do not like responsibility, they only act if a leader gives them the injunction.

0.0

Children of the Casbah

May 10, 1959

In a house in the heart of the Casbah of Algiers, a family is torn apart by the weight of war. Three divided brothers, caught up in the contradictions of a country in struggle, gradually unite around a single cause: the liberation of Algeria. Ibna El Casbah is a tense, emotionally-charged behind-closed-doors story that captures the moment when intimacy becomes history.

6.0

Queen of Atlantis

Jun 28, 1932

Two young officers, Saint-Avit and Morhange, get lost in the desert and find themselves prisoners of the beautiful Antinéa, queen of the city of Atlantis. Saint-Avit, blinded by his love for her, obeys her when she orders him to kill his comrade... With L’Atlantide, Pabst offers a psychoanalytic reading of Benoit’s novel, with a dominant female figure who enslaves her lovers before destroying them. The film’s fantasy dimension is disturbing, L’Atlantide bathes in a humid nightmare atmosphere, between the desperate search for a missing friend and the apparitions of an underworld lost in the desert. A long, discursive flashback suggests the Parisian origins of Antinéa, born from the marriage between Clémentine, a pretty, light-thighed French Cancan dancer, and an Arab prince seduced during a theatrical performance. But again, it's impossible to know whether these are the ramblings of an old alcoholic or the strange truth.

10.0

Sidonie Panache

Oct 19, 1934

In 1842, during the conquest of Algeria Sidonie Panache disguised as a Soave runs away with her lover who is doing his military service there.

6.6

Fata Morgana

Feb 1, 1972

Shot under extreme conditions and inspired by Mayan creation theory, the film contemplates the illusion of reality and the possibility of capturing for the camera something which is not there. It is about the mirages of nature—and the nature of mirage.

10.0

L'inspecteur Tahar Marque Le But

Jan 1, 1975

A simple case of a car accident in the city of Oran turns into a real criminal investigation led by Inspector Tahar and his sidekick the apprentice.

10.0

The Frison-Roche Track

Jan 1, 2009

Roger Frison-Roche born in Paris in 1906 and moved to Chamonix at the age of 17. He was quickly adopted by local mountaineers and became the first guide in the Company not to have been born in the valley. He is also an insatiable explorer, in love with landscapes and peoples, having traveled from the Hoggar to the Sami camps in Lapland. And the author, among others, of the famous adventure novel Premier de Cordée! This documentary, made up of archive images and interviews, exposes the prolific life of a man who communicated his passion for the mountains by all possible means. A young journalist from Chamonix follows in the footsteps of Roger Frison-Roche. She meets people who knew him and others who followed in his footsteps: guides, filmmaker and author Philippe Claudel, a director, his family; on a trip to Lapland, Algeria, Chamonix.

10.0

Oversand

Jan 1, 1981

Oversand is one of the first films about free climbing, the third film in a series of three with "Overdon" and "Over-Ice". Directed by Jean-Paul Janssen, the film was shot in 35mm in Algeria, in the Sahara Desert, in the Tamanrasset region, on the walls of the majestic peaks of the Atakor massif, central sub-region of Hoggar, mountainous heart of Hoggar, a volcanic plateau of almost circular shape, whose average altitude is 2000 meters, and which culminates at Mount Tahat (2918m), the highest point in Algeria. The Atakor is distinguished by its spectacular volcanic peaks, its needles, and its rugged landscapes, resulting from the erosion of ancient volcanic chimneys, which make it the most emblematic summits of the Hoggar, such as the Assekrem, the Ilamane, or the Tizouyag, where climbers Patrick Edlinger, Patrick Bérhault, Bernard Gorgeon, Hugues Jaillet, Jacques Perrier, Stéphane Troussier and Odette Schoënleb evolve under the watchful eye of the Tuareg caravans.

9.5

The Passenger

Jan 1, 1987

On the train between Algiers and Constantine, Kamal crosses paths with a young girl. Between fleeting moments and shared moments, a friendship is forged, carried by tenderness and escapades throughout Algeria. The journey then becomes a mirror of the heart's impulses, but distance becomes an obstacle when it comes to declaring one's feelings and imagining a future together.

10.0

Le Grand Désert

Dec 1, 1950

In 1950, the explorer Roger Frison-Roche made a crossing of more than a thousand kilometers on the back of a camel with the photographer Georges Tairraz II, in the heart of the Sahara, from Hoggar then Djanet in Algeria to Ghat in Libya. From their journey they brought back a large number of color films and documents. Among thousands of photos, they selected 47 images which reflect the various aspects of these immense spaces which occupy a third of Africa in the book "The Great Desert". “The Great Desert, 1000 kilometers on camelback” is the eponymous 85-minute documentary of this epic, released in 1950.

The Desert Divers

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

The Desert Divers Trailers