La Maison Jaune/The Yellow House

Director : Amor Hakkar
Country : France-Algeria
Running Time: 83 mins.

This subtle and picturesque tale is as much an ode to the Algerian countryside as it is a simple film about a man's journey to keep his family in tact. When Mouloud learns his son Belkacem has been killed in a car accident while serving in the army, he leaves his daughter Alya and wife Fatima and embarks on a meditative journey across Eastern Algeria to bring back the body. Traveling through the majestic Aures Mountains, the obstacles he faces on his journey reveals the remarkable kindness and sensitivity of his countrymen in neighboring villages and town. Upon returning home and completing the necessary burial rituals, Mouloud finds that his wife has fallen into a deep depression. Determined to bring her out of it, Mouloud, with a heartwarming naiveté, struggles to remove her grief with simple gestures of his love. A poignant mix of beauty, loss and devotion, Amor Hakkar's beautifully shot film presents a sun-kissed Algeria filled with daily expressions of a dignified humanity.

Amor Hakkar

Amor HAKKAR (1958, Algeria) moved to France with his parents when he was only six months old. He studied Science and discovered his passion for cinema and writing only later. In 2002 he went back to the Aures area in Algeria where he was born, to bury his father. Back in France he wrote the script for The Yellow House.

Rating :8.4/10
video : http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=sFZkymuSr0U&feature=related

Reves de poussiere/Dreams of Dust(2006)

Director : Laurent Salgues
Country : France/Canada
Running Time: 86 mins.

Nominated for Grand Jury Prize, Sundane film Festival.

Mocktar, a Nigerian peasant, comes looking for work in Essakane, a dusty gold mine in Northeast Burkina Faso, Africa, where he hopes to forget the past that haunts him. In Essakane, he quickly finds out, the gold rush ended twenty years before, and the inhabitants of the wasteland and strange timelessness manage to exist simply from force of habit. The beautiful Coumba, however, is still courageously struggling to raise her daughter after the death of her family. Mocktar will soon be fighting not only to survive, but also to provide a better future for this mother and her child

Laurent Salgues

Laurent Salgues was born in France in 1967. He studied at the École Supérieure d’Audiovisuel (ESAV) in Tolosa, and later continued with a scriptwriting course at the University of Paris and at the University of California (UCLA). Between 1992 and 1996, he directed three short movies. He has been writing for television and cinema since 2003. Rêves de poussière is his first feature film.

Rating : 7.3/10
video : http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=DpRIbByrDgU