São Paulo – Karim Aïnouz’s new film, Mariner of the Mountains (O Marinheiro das Montanhas in the Portuguese title), will be screened at the Cannes Film Festival Special Sessions as announced by the organizers of the event on Thursday (3) along with the official selection of films in competition and other screenings. The festival will take place from July 6 to 17. The Algerian-Brazilian director has already won the Un Certain Regard top prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019 for his feature The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão.
In “Mariner of the Mountains,” Aïnouz tells the story of his parents. In a travel diary, he documents the story of love and separation between the Brazilian Iracema and the Algerian Madjid, from the romance that began in the United States, where they got married, the happy days they spent together, and a slide box with memories from those moments, to Madjid’s one-way trip to Algeria. Iracema returned to Fortaleza (capital city of the state of Ceará, Brazil) alone and pregnant. Karim Aïnouz was born in Ceará and grew up without his father, who is now 80 years old. His mother never remarried. Aïnouz met his father at age 20, in Paris, and in 2019, along with him, he visited Algeria for the first time, where the film was made.
“I’m delighted with such an intimate film in such an important showcase!”, Aïnouz told ANBA this Friday (4) by text message. The title, “Mariner of the Mountains,” was chosen because it unites sea and rock, representing his mother, a biochemist who studied algae, and his father, who comes from the mountains.
In a 2019 interview, after winning the Un Certain Regard Prize, Aïnouz was already making plans for the film. “I think there are about five movies I need to make before I die, and this is one of them. (…) Because it is a wonderful story, very free, that speaks of a historical moment where everything was possible, an Algerian meeting a woman from Ceará, you know? It is a film about a moment where there were many possibilities,” he told ANBA at the time. The provisional title “Algerian by Accident,” given in 2019, became “Mariner of the Mountains.” Read the full interview here.
In the competition, there are no Brazilian films. Among the 24 titles nominated for the Palme d’Or, only one is Arab. “Casablanca Beats,” by Nabil Ayouch, from Morocco. See the full list on the festival’s website.
The 74th Cannes Film Festival was supposed to occur last year, but it was postponed because of the pandemic. Filmmaker Spike Lee will chair the jury for this year’s edition, which will feature tests to detect possible COVID-19 infections and tents that will promote the vaccination of attendees.
Karim Aïnouz portrayed the Algerian reality in his latest film, the documentary “Nardjes A.,” screened at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival, with no scheduled premiere in Brazil. In the movie, he portrays a young activist in the midst of the so-called Revolution of Smiles, in Algeria, in 2019.
Read more:
- After Cannes, Karim Aïnouz works on documentary on Algeria
- Film festival screening 40 movies by female filmmakers
Translated by Elúsio Brasileiro
