BIDOUN PRESENTS: NAHLA
This screening is part of: BIDOUN PRESENTS
Film Notes
Since summer of 2023, Anthology has been hosting screenings programmed and co-presented by Bidoun, the magazine and curatorial platform that, since 2004, has offered irreverent, intelligent, and original writing and projects from in and around the Middle East and its many diasporas.
For the next installment of this recurring series, which is guest-programmed by Bidounโs Tiffany Malakooti, we host two (35mm) screenings in September of the Algerian film, NAHLA (1979), a classic of Algerian cinema that is the sole surviving feature by Farouk Beloufa. The filmmakerโs son, Neil Beloufa, will be here in person to introduce the screening on September 19!
For more info about Bidoun visit: https://www.bidoun.org/
Farouk Beloufa
NAHLA
1979, 114 min, 35mm. In Arabic and French with English subtitles. Archival print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.
Shot in 1978 but set three years earlier in 1975, NAHLA follows the intertwined stories of four characters in Beirut at the onset of the Lebanese Civil War. Nahla, a young singer who loses her voice; her sister Maha, a feminist journalist; Hind, a Palestinian activist who provides a channel to the camps and later joins the resistance; and Larbi, an Algerian journalist caught in the tumult. An elliptically structured political drama, NAHLAโs narrative linearity comes from the consistent presence of real political events: the battle of Kfar Chouba, a meeting between Kissinger and Sadat, the assassinations of Maarouf Saad and Saudi King Faisal, and so on. Co-written with Rachid Boudjedra and produced by Radio Tรฉlรฉvision Algรฉrienne, NAHLA is the product of a pan-Arab intellectualism connecting Algeria, Lebanon, Palestine, and beyond. With music composed by Ziad Rahbani, who also appears in the film.
Followed by:
Jocelyne Saab
ON THE SET OF NAHLA / SUR LE TOURNAGE DE NAHLA
1979, 27 min, 16mm-to-DCP. In Arabic and French with English subtitles.
A behind-the-scenes documentary directed by Jocelyne Saab. With Farouk Beloufa, Yasmine Khlat, Ahmed Mehrez, Jocelyne Saab, Youcef Saรฏeh, and Lina Tebbara.
โIn the mid-1970s, Algeria was very interested in what was happening in Lebanon, in particular because the PLO headquarters were in Beirut, and the Palestinian issue is a central concern for the Arab world [โฆ] I remember that some senior leaders of the National Liberation Front (NLF) began to wonder if a kind of civil war similar to the one that ignited Lebanon would come to pass in Algeria. I was invitedโฆto present my documentary at the Cinematheque of Algiers, which was then a hotbed of global cinephilia [โฆ] I had interesting discussions with Algerian filmmakers, like Farouk Beloufa, who discovered Lebanon through my films. Shortly thereafter, he shot NAHLA. [โฆ] Farouk was fascinated by the freedom of speech movement and the proliferation of ideas of political parties in Lebanon in the seventies.โ โJocelyne Saab
Total running time: ca. 145 min.
Intro by Neil Beloufa on Sept 19!