Latest news with #MohammedLakhdar-Hamina
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, the first Arab and African director to win Cannes Palme d'Or, dies aged 91
Algerian director Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, whose 1975 drama Chronique des Années de Braise (Chronicles of the Years of Fire) won Cannes' Palme d'Or in 1975, has died aged 91. He was the oldest living recipient of the Palme d'Or and Chronicles of the Years of Fire remains Africa's only Palme d'Or to this day. Lakhdar-Hamina's family said the producer and director died at his home in the Algerian capital of Algers on 23 May. Coincidently, the Cannes Film Festival screened Chronicles of the Years of Fire in its Cannes Classics program that day, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the film's Palme d'Or. Set between 1939 and 1954, the movie retells the Algerian War of Independence through the eyes of a peasant farmer, depicting the harshness of French colonial rule. Lakhdar-Hamina competed for the Palme d'Or four times, with The Winds of the Aures, which won the best first film prize in 1967, as well as Sandstorm (1982) and Last Image (1986). After a 30-year break, Lakhdar-Hamina directed Twilight of Shadows, which was Algeria's submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 88th Academy Awards in 2016. Born on 26 February 1934 in M'Sila in the Aurès region of north-east Algeria, Hamina studied in the southern French town of Antibes. During the Algerian war, his father was tortured and killed by the French army. He was called up to the French army in 1958 but deserted to join the Algerian resistance in Tunis, where he did an internship with Tunisian news. He ran Algeria's news service, the l'Office des Actualités Algériennes (OAA) from shortly after the revolution to 1974. He was also head of the Algerian National Office for Commerce and the Film Industry between 1981 and 1984. French distributor Les Acacias Distribution will theatrically re-release Chronicles of the Years of Fire in cinemas in France on 6 August.
Euronews
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Euronews
First Arab and African director to win Cannes Palme d'Or dies aged 91
Algerian director Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, whose 1975 drama Chronique des Années de Braise (Chronicles of the Years of Fire) won Cannes' Palme d'Or in 1975, has died aged 91. He was the oldest living recipient of the Palme d'Or and Chronicles of the Years of Fire remains Africa's only Palme d'Or to this day. Lakhdar-Hamina's family said the producer and director died at his home in the Algerian capital of Algers on 23 May. Coincidently, the Cannes Film Festival screened Chronicles of the Years of Fire in its Cannes Classics program that day, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the film's Palme d'Or. Set between 1939 and 1954, the movie retells the Algerian War of Independence through the eyes of a peasant farmer, depicting the harshness of French colonial rule. Lakhdar-Hamina competed for the Palme d'Or four times, with The Winds of the Aures, which won the best first film prize in 1967, as well as Sandstorm (1982) and Last Image (1986). After a 30-year break, Lakhdar-Hamina directed Twilight of Shadows, which was Algeria's submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 88th Academy Awards in 2016. Born on 26 February 1934 in M'Sila in the Aurès region of north-east Algeria, Hamina studied in the southern French town of Antibes. During the Algerian war, his father was tortured and killed by the French army. He was called up to the French army in 1958 but deserted to join the Algerian resistance in Tunis, where he did an internship with Tunisian news. He ran Algeria's news service, the l'Office des Actualités Algériennes (OAA) from shortly after the revolution to 1974. He was also head of the Algerian National Office for Commerce and the Film Industry between 1981 and 1984. French distributor Les Acacias Distribution will theatrically re-release Chronicles of the Years of Fire in cinemas in France on 6 August.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina Dies: Algerian Cannes Palme D'Or Winner Was 91
Algerian director Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, whose 1975 drama Chronicles of the Years of Fire remains Africa's only Cannes Palme d'Or to this day, has died at the age of 91. Lakhdar-Hamina's family said the producer and director died at his home in the Algerian capital of Algers on May 23. More from Deadline Richard Linklater's 'Nouvelle Vague' Draws Raft Of International Buyers For Goodfellas - Cannes Sony Pictures Classics Takes North America & Multiple Territories For Cannes Caméra D'Or Winner 'The President's Cake' Doc Talk In Cannes: Deadline Podcast Hosts American Pavilion Panel On Challenged State Of Documentary Industry In quirk of fate, the Cannes Film Festival screened Chronicles of the Years of Fire in its Cannes Classics program that day, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the film's Palme d'Or, in the presence of the director's son Malek Lakhdar-Hamina. Set between the late 1930s and 1954, the movie retells the Algerian War of Independence through the eyes of a peasant farmer, exploring the roots of the movement and depicting the harshness of French colonial rule. In an era in which the film world had yet to start embracing diversity, Lakhdar-Hamina was one of the few African and Arab directors to put in a regular appearance in Cannes from the 1960s to the 1980s. He competed for the Palme d'Or four times, with his other contenders including The Winds of the Aures, which won the best first film prize in 1967 (now known as the Caméra d'Or), as well as Sandstorm (1982) and Last Image (1986). After a 30-year break, he returned to the director's seat with Twilight of Shadows, which was Algeria's submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 88th Academy Awards in 2016. Lakhdar-Hamina was born on February 26, 1934, in M'sila in the Aurès region in northeastern Algeria into a farming family. His filmography was shaped by his experiences in the Algerian resistance during the War of Independence from 1954 to 1962, as well as the death of his father at the hands of the French army. Lakhdar-Hamina joined the Algerian resistance in Tunis in 1958, where he did an internship with Tunisian news, which led to him shooting his first short films. From there, he went on to study at the Prague film and TV school FAMU. Aside from his own filmmaking, Lakhdar Hamina ran Algeria's news service, the l'Office des Actualités Algériennes (OAA) from shortly after the revolution to 1974, and was also head of the Algerian National Office for Commerce and the Film Industry between 1981 and 1984. The 4K restoration of Chronicles of the Years of Fire was undertaken by The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna at L'Image Retrouvée (Paris) and L'Immagine Ritrovata (Bologna) laboratories. It was funded by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation as part of the African Film Heritage Project, an initiative created by The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project, the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers (FEPACI) and UNESCO – in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna – to help locate, restore, and disseminate African cinema. French distributor Les Acacias Distribution will theatrically re-release the film in cinemas in France on August 6. Best of Deadline 'Hacks' Season 4 Release Schedule: When Do New Episodes Come Out? Everything We Know About 'Hacks' Season 4 So Far 'The Last Of Us': Differences Between HBO Series & Video Game Across Seasons 1 And 2
TimesLIVE
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- TimesLIVE
Top 3 movies shining a spotlight on African cinema
May 25 is Africa Day, the annual commemoration of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963, so what better time to turn attention away from the anxieties and despair of the present and take a trip back into the glorious past of Africa's rich cinematic history? Here are three films from across the continent that explore the rich tapestry of history, struggle and tradition that has shaped life in Africa for millennia. THE ART HOUSE ESSENTIAL: Chronicle of the Years of Embers — YouTube Algerian director Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina's 1975 drama about the history of his homeland from World War 2 to the war of independence earns its oft-used epic descriptor readily. A widescreen spectacle that won the prestigious Palm d'Or prize at Cannes, the film tells the big story of Algeria's long and bitter struggle for freedom from the colonial yoke of France. It does this through the smaller story of Ahmad, a poor farmer forced into service in the French army during the war, who returns with the fire for liberation burning in his belly as he commits to freeing himself and his country from colonialism. Spread over six chapters from 1930 to 1954, the film offers a history of the phases in the country's journey to revolution through the personal experiences and challenges of its peasant protagonist. It is regarded as an epic classic to match the celebrated Hollywood examples offered by films such as Lawrence of Arabia, and is notable for its depiction of how the harshness of the desert environment echoes the difficulties faced by Ahmed and his fellow countrymen as they battle for independence. It's a rare example of a film that manages to marry the changes in political consciousness of a nation to those faced by its very ordinary but heroic main character. It remains the only African and Arab film to have won Cannes' top prize and stands up half-a-century later as a moving, sweeping, historically engaging and politically challenging epic. THE STONE COLD CLASSIC: Mandabi — YouTube No African cinema list is complete without mention of Ousmane Sembène, the prodigious and multitalented director and writer who did more than most to put the cinema of the continent firmly in the global spotlight. This, his second feature, shot entirely in the Senegalese language Wolof, and considered to be the first feature shot entirely in an African language, was written and directed by Sembène, based on his own novel of the same name. The title refers to a money order, and it's the cashing of this precious gift that serves as the device on which Sembène hangs his simple but sharply effective dissection of the ills of neocolonialism, corruption and religion in 1968 post-independence Senegal. Ibrahim Dieng is an unemployed Muslim man struggling to support his two wives and seven children in Dakar. When his nephew sends him a money order from France, saved while working his job as a street sweeper in Paris, Ibrahim's luck looks as if it is about to change for the better. He's supposed to keep some money for himself, keep some aside for his nephew and give some to his sister. However, it soon becomes clear there's no such thing as an easy money order as Ibrahim finds that there are many hurdles to overcome if he's to get the precious gold. Without an ID, he must negotiate the frustrations of Senegalese bureaucracy to get one, spending money he doesn't have in the process. When neighbours arrive asking for a loan, Ibrahim's good heart loses him more money he doesn't have to give, and what little he might have had left is finally tricked out of him by an immoral relative, leaving the poor man we met at the beginning of the film even poorer. Sembène's parable about the challenges and pitfalls facing his beloved country and its people in the uncertain postcolonial era is told with gentle love, quiet humour and emotional empathy that help to make it a small but memorable masterpiece. THE DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH Yaaba — YouTube Hailed on its release in 1989 as 'a timeless, universal tale of wise children, unwise adults and one ultrawise old woman,' Burkinabè director Idrissa Ouedraogo's drama is a classic tale of the cruelties of adult life as seen through the eyes of its child protagonists. Bila is a 10-year-old living in Burkina Faso's smallest village when she makes friends with Saana, an elderly woman ostracised by her community and dubbed a witch. She may be a witch to the rest of the village but to Bila, Saana is 'Yaaba' (grandmother), a friend and the provider of medicine that helped Bila's cousin stay alive after becoming ill. Using nonprofessional actors and filmed with a direct intimacy that places you firmly in the reality of its setting, Ouedraogo's film is a quiet, simple work that packs a hard, universal and truth-telling punch that lifts it beyond the world of its tiny village and into the hearts of anyone who's had to overcome superstition and led to find love in an unexpected place.
