{"id":358875,"date":"2023-09-27T10:00:07","date_gmt":"2023-09-27T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/karim-ainouz-depicts-his-roots-and-the-changes-in-algeria\/"},"modified":"2024-03-22T17:01:28","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T20:01:28","slug":"karim-ainouz-depicts-his-roots-and-the-changes-in-algeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/karim-ainouz-depicts-his-roots-and-the-changes-in-algeria\/","title":{"rendered":"Karim A\u00efnouz depicts his roots and the changes in Algeria"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Karim A\u00efnouz<\/strong>\u2019s films are a journey through deeply personal stories and revolutionary characters. The director, who was born in Brazil\u2019s Northeastern state of Cear\u00e1, recorded his first trip to his father\u2019s country\u00a0 Algeria in Mariner of the Mountains<\/em>, which is perhaps his most intimate film to date. There he meets his family in Kabylia, a village in the mountains where the A\u00efnouz came from, and learns more about their history, which is part of his identity. The film was shot in early 2019 when the Algerian people were protesting against a fifth term for then-president Bouteflika. The director felt the need to show these demonstrations in Algiers and did so through the eyes of Nardjes A.<\/em>, a young Algerian activist who is the namesake of the documentary. Both films premiere Thursday (28) in Brazil.<\/p>\n

In an interview with ANBA at a hotel in S\u00e3o Paulo, Karim A\u00efnouz spoke of delving into his roots and the history of revolutions in Algeria, which led to the two productions, Firebrand <\/em>which is his first international fictional feature film and contended for the Palme d\u2019Or in Cannes this year and is expected to premiere in Brazil in January 2024, and future projects.<\/p>\n

This interview contains spoilers.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Karim A\u00efnouz was born in Fortaleza, the capital city of Cear\u00e1. His mother Iracema met Majid A\u00efnouz in the United States in the 70s when she was studying at a university there. However, Majid returned to Algeria to fight for independence, and Karim only met him at age 15 in Paris.<\/p>\n

Mariner of the Mountains<\/strong>, Karim A\u00efnouz said, is a film that’s connected to his 2009 feature film I Travel Because I Have to, I Come Back Because I Love You<\/em>. \u201cAnd to my first short film, too, Seams<\/em>, which is on YouTube<\/a>. It\u2019s a film I made for my grandmother. I didn\u2019t think I wanted to make films. I just wanted to record my beloved grandmother Branca,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A\u00efnouz<\/em> made the trip to Algeria in 2019<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The director decided to visit his country of origin on his own. \u201cI’d always thought I wanted to go on this trip with my father for him to show me Algeria, to discover the country through his eyes, but he had never invited me to go there,\u201d he said. After divorcing Karim\u2019s mother, Iracema, Majid married an Algerian woman and built a new family there.<\/p>\n

Karim A\u00efnouz planned the trip, the project, got a budget, and called his father the day before leaving, letting him know he was going to Algiers. His father even went to the Algerian capital to meet him, but Karim A\u00efnouz said he only turned on the camera after his father left and returned to Paris, where he lives to this day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got there, I understood I really wanted to make that trip alone. I didn\u2019t want to see it through his eyes because I thought if I wanted to do it that way, I could have gone with him when I was still a boy, so I thought it was very important to discover that place by myself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Read more on this interview with Karim A\u00efnouz in 2019<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Letter to his mother<\/strong><\/p>\n

The travel diary is narrated by A\u00efnouz as if he were telling the story to his mother Iracema. \u201cI understood it was a trip I had taken not only to find out where my father, grandfather and my family name come from but a trip I wanted to take with my mother and we didn\u2019t, so I thought it would be more powerful both personally and dramaturgically if it was her I told about this trip to, after all she was the one I wanted to tell about it to. She was curious about this place that she never got to go. It was expensive and complex to go to Algeria. It was very difficult, after she returned to Brazil, to raise me alone, and when I got there, I realized,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Tribute to grandfather Idir<\/strong><\/p>\n

For A\u00efnouz, at that moment, it became clear that this was not a film about his father but his family\u2019s political legacy. \u201cI had a much closer relationship with my grandfather than my father. My grandfather left for Paris; it was a very cruel life. He fought for twenty years for [Algeria\u2019s] independence, and when the first revolutionary government came into power, he was part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Then there was a coup within his own party, and he was exiled, so it was a very sad thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Karim A\u00efnouz’s parents, Majid and Iracema<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He recalled when his grandfather Idir died in 2004 in Paris. Karim already lived in Germany. \u201cI got the call and went to Paris for his funeral, and I remember, in the cemetery where he was being buried [thinking]: All my grandfather didn\u2019t want was to be buried in France. Maybe it was much more of a journey to discover who my grandfather was, what he did during the war, what he did during the revolution, than about my father,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Karim left Fortaleza for Paris, France, in 1985, where he lived with his father for two years. \u201cI met my grandfather before I met my father. I thought my father lived in Algeria and my grandfather lived in Paris. Then I met my grandfather; he was the one who introduced me to my father, and my relationship with my grandfather was much better than with my father. And I\u2019ll confess something to you, […] I think for my father, it was all very difficult, and with my grandfather, I learned a lot more about Algeria, so it was very nice to meet this brother of his, my great-uncle [who appears in Mariner of the Mountains], and he tells me about my grandfather things that he… I think anyone who has been through war doesn\u2019t want to talk about war, right? So what I knew about my grandfather was a little idyllic about Algeria, the mountain, and Kabylia, so for me, it was much more about finding where my grandfather and grandmother came from than about my father,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In Mariner of the Mountains<\/em>, Karim A\u00efnouz finds a namesake on the way, and when he reaches Kabylia<\/strong>, he finds an A\u00efnouz community there. \u201cIt was crazy, it was insane, the moment of getting in the graveyard. As I remember that when I was raised in Fortaleza, our first house was next to a graveyard, and it was a place where many people used to go, so it wasn\u2019t a taboo or anything. [Our house] was 300 meters from the graveyard, and there wasn\u2019t anyone named A\u00efnouz there, since there were only previous generations of my mom\u2019s [family],\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A scene of the film in Kabylia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the cemetery of Kabylia, A\u00efnouz saw his family name and better understood the historical and permanence bearings of that place, although it didn\u2019t saw a very large migration. \u201cIt was profound to understand that that people really had they roots there, that they were ancient roots, even after the centuries and centuries that they have been in that place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The filmmaker found in Kabylia a time-old old full of mythology<\/strong> and the history of a people that fought the French colonization<\/strong>. \u201cThere you have peoples from North Africa, the Berbers, who underwent several invasions \u2013 by the Phoenicians, the Romans, then the Ottomans who lingered there, and then came the Arabs. So the peoples that used to live on the flats fled to the mountain peaks as it was very hard to get there. This was beautiful to found out. And there\u2019re the Kabyle, the Arabs \u2013 it\u2019s all mixed up there. Of course, they\u2019re different ethnicities but very similar to each other. For me it was also revealing to learn where this people came from, their history,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

During the filming, A\u00efnouz read Berber tales<\/strong> that show the Kabyle mythology, which is not Muslim. \u201cThey were animists<\/strong>, so there\u2019s a very interesting thing about the fantastic tales. The story I mention towards the end [of Mariner] about Ines is greatly inspired by a tale I was reading at the time. They\u2019re really folktales of the Berber mythology, that lore of the foundation of the world. These were all things I learned when I was there. So it was very impressive to really discover this universe which I hadn\u2019t any idea of,\u201d he said. Ines is a young woman who A\u00efnouz meet in Kabylia.<\/p>\n

The filmmaker said he didn\u2019t see himself as an Algerian during the trip. \u201cActually no [I didn\u2019t] because I\u2019m much more Cearense<\/strong> than anything else. Maybe I\u2019m many more things than an Algerian, but I believe this is a very beautiful story that even if I feel that I don\u2019t belong, I want to be embraced by them, as it\u2019s very rich,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Nardjes A.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Activities Nardjes A. in a scene of the movie<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The idea was first to make a film during his trip to Algeria. \u201cI went there to make the Mariner<\/em> [of the Mountains<\/em>], and when I got there, I tried to understand it. I went after my father, my grandfather, and I tried to better understand the political history<\/strong> of that country, which has a remarkable history which I\u2019m a result of but knew very little about<\/strong>. I was really obsessed with the revolution, the [Algerian] War of Independence, the emancipation from the colonial rule\u2026 In short, I believe the Mariner<\/em> is much more a film on the consequences of and the reaction to colonialism than anything else. I\u2019m there, my father is there, my grandfather is there, my story is there, but I believe the major topic of the film is the portrayal of a country that has freed itself from a very cruel colonial power,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When he got to Argel, A\u00efnouz looked at his past, to the war in the 50s that culminated in the country\u2019s independence in 1962. By the end of his second week in Argel in February 2019, there was a throng in the streets fighting against the running administration. \u201cI was very stricken, because I caught myself daydreaming, what if it was in Brazil?\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

Women and a reckoning<\/strong><\/p>\n

A\u00efnouz started then to film the streets that were taken by the green, white and red flag of the country. \u201cI also began to understand that it was very hard to film women for the Mariner<\/em>, as the Muslim public space is very male-dominated, very patriarchal. And I hadn\u2019t access to female characters, and I realized that those manifestations had many women on the streets<\/strong>, because women played a key role in the [Algerian] War of Independence<\/strong>. There was\u00a0 huge presence of women in the War of Independence (in1958),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

So the filmmaker had the idea to film the demonstrations from the perspective of a female character. \u201cI got really excited about filming those manifestations. I thought with myself, I have to film these from a female perspective, like a reckoning for the Mariner<\/em>, he said.<\/p>\n

He contacted a friend with a casting agency that used to cast Algerian actresses and actors, as he believed it was important to have someone who were acquainted to the camera. The idea was to follow a demonstrator during a whole day in one of these protests, coincidentally on the International Women\u2019s Day on March 8, 2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Karin A\u00efnouz\u2019s mother Iracema appears in old photographs in Mariner of the Mountains<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI met and was utterly captivated by Nardjes, who had something that remind me of the fire of my mother, a certain irreverence, a certain anger, and on the other hand, she told me something that was really charming. She said to me, \u2018I\u2019ll let you film me. I go to the protests every single weekend. This is the third manifestation. It\u2019s dangerous, and we could be arrested, but I\u2019d love to document that. But I won\u2019t act for you \u2013 you\u2019ll film the activist Nardjes,\u2019\u201d A\u00efnouz recalled.<\/p>\n

The director filmed the manifestation without actually knowing it would become a film. \u201cThat for me was a material that would make me happy to see it later, as it was so full of hope<\/strong>. Then after I started editing the Mariner<\/em>, I understood that may be that was its sister film,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

First Karim A\u00efnouz tried to fit the manifestations into the montage of Mariner<\/em>. \u201cI tried many times. And you\u2019ll notice that there\u2019s a moment in the Mariner<\/em> towards the end that there\u2019s a writing in Arabic that says, \u2018The Revolution is Forever\u2019 or \u2018The Revolution Shall Prevail\u2019 and the sounds are from Nardjes A<\/em>., so for many months, there was a part of that that was an integral part of Mariner<\/em>, from when I arrived [in Argel] and found that revolution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

More elegant, more productive, and more effective<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI just thought it was too much to handle, and it would be more elegant, more productive, and more effective if they were two distinct objects. So I made the Mariner<\/em>, and still had a lot of material there. And one thing is important to say is that Nardjes<\/em> was filmed in 2019 and screened at [German festival] Berlinale in 2020<\/strong>. I believe one of the reasons why I made Nardjes was precisely to talk more about something I knew very little of. Very little was said about what was happening, about these insurrections that were taking place in Argel. So it was very lovely to be able to screen this movie at Berlinale and shed some light on that. [Nardjes] was screened in Germany. So for me it was almost an issue of somewhat unravelling something very relevant that was happening and wasn\u2019t being documented<\/strong>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A\u00efnouz and Nardjes became good friends, and he told this reporter that he had talked to her a week earlier and was going to Argel later this week for the premier of Mariner<\/em>, and he would take the opportunity to meet her. The director feels like he has another movie to make there, now a fictional one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very eager to make [another] movie [in Algeria], something like a science fiction on the desert. There\u2019s a story I\u2019m developing, a project that I\u2019m currently fascinated with, about some nuclear experiments that France did in the desert [of Algeria] in the 60s<\/strong> that were even bigger than Hiroshima<\/strong>. What France did on the desert is unbelievable, and nobody talks about that, so I really want to make a movie about it,\u201d he said on his future plans.<\/p>\n

Nardjes A. draws attention besides the political aspects for breaking stereotypes of the Arab Muslim woman<\/strong>. The activist is short-haired, go out dancing, does theater, don\u2019t wear a veil. \u201cThis was so big because these Arab women are those who fought the post-colonial independence wars. There was a whole section of the National Liberation Front that was a female army. And Nardjes is the granddaughter of one of those women. She is not only a moder, contemporary, empowered women but also the<\/strong> granddaughter of a female activist<\/strong>. And I believe the greatest thing about making the Mariner<\/em>, about making Nardjes<\/em> is this. There\u2019s a story that we have to unveil, to shed light one, and it\u2019s really beautiful to see the women who took up arms to fight the French army in the 60s in Algeria. It\u2019s really impressive, and it happened across the Arab world, in Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco\u2026,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His first international fictional feature film<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Cannes last May, Karim A\u00efnouz premiered Firebrand<\/strong>, his first international fictional feature filme, which is expected to premiere in Brazil in January. The film is starred by UK actor Jude Law and Swedish actress Alicia Vikander and recounts the last few months of life of UK queen Catherine Parr<\/strong>. The film was nominated for the Palme d\u2019Or. He told ANBA how this project had started.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Karim A\u00efnouz, Alicia Vikander, and Jude Law at the premiere of Firebrand in Cannes<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Karim A\u00efnouz, Alicia Vikander, and Jude Law at the premiere of Firebrand in Cannes<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the making of Invisible Life<\/em> ended, the Brazilian cinema was cut short by what happened in politics [in 2019], and a marvelous English producer sought me. I needed to work and went after the projects on the market. I found her, and she offered me the story of this queen, who was a revolutionary despite being a queen, and I asked her, \u2018why do you want me to do that? I have nothing whatsoever to do with her, it was 500 years ago.\u2019 And she said, \u2018because I believe she has the DNA of your female characters<\/strong>.\u2019 And she really had [\u2026] something about resistance, about political change. I believe what she did was very radical from the political perspective, and that\u2019s how I fell in love with Catherine Parr<\/strong>, and the project rolled out. So during the pandemic, I edited the Mariner<\/em> and studied the life of Catherine Parr, to better understand if this intuition I had about her really made sense, and that\u2019s how Firebrand<\/em> came into being. The movie is based on a book, and we wrote the script and changed it so that it would focus specifically on her last months of life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Firebrand is starred by UK\u2019s Jude Law and Sweeden\u2019s Alicia Vikander<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A\u00efnouz talked about his experience working with Hollywood actors. \u201cYou know what was really nice? They\u2019re all people. What happens is that they are very well known. There\u2019s a whole industry there. Jude Law isn\u2019t a star because he has the industry, but the industry makes him a bigger star, and the same goes with Alicia Vikander. So it was very nice to work in an environment that will have a global visibility<\/strong> from the start because the whole world knows who they are. And they are very experienced actors, too, so I believe this is always a present for a director. And I am not talking just about the two of them, but the whole cast of Firebrand<\/em> that\u2019s a classically trained British cast with a very beautiful, very rich history, so it was fun. Sometimes it was hard because a star is a star, and there are moments they believe themselves to be the most important thing in the world, but I believe that the director-actor relationship reaches a cruising speed<\/strong> when there\u2019s confidence on both sides. It was really good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also mentioned the experience of filming a historical drama<\/strong>. \u201cWe\u2019re afraid to make historical films in Brazil, so it was good to learn it. I believe it is no wonder there\u2019s such a mythos around the British monarchy<\/strong>. A part of this is thanks to the cinema. So many films have been made. Therefore, it was great to learn how to do it so that we can make a series of movies that talk about our history in Brazil,\u201d he finished.<\/p>\n

Karim A\u00efnouz still lives in Berlin, Germany. After Firebrand<\/em>, he filmed Motel Destino<\/em> in Cear\u00e1 and is expected to start filming his next fictional feature film Rosebushpruning<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Translated by El\u00fasio Brasileiro & Guilherme Miranda <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Algerian-descent filmmaker born in Brazil\u2019s Cear\u00e1 is about to launch two new films, Mariner of the Mountains and Nardjes A. They were both shot in Algeria and will premiere in Brazil on September 28. ANBA brings an exclusive interview with the director.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2305,"featured_media":351412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[2034,2033,45540,31823,45541,45542,8989,45575,45543,17037,28406,45544,28651,1826,7722,45545,45580,45546,45582,45547,45548,8983,21108,21290,45549,45550,45551,45590,45552,45553,45593,45554,45555],"class_list":{"0":"post-358875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-algeria","9":"tag-algiers","10":"tag-alicia-vikander","11":"tag-argel-en-2","12":"tag-berlinale","13":"tag-bouteflika","14":"tag-cannes","15":"tag-catherine-parr","16":"tag-cathgerine-parr","17":"tag-cineasta","18":"tag-cinema-en-2","19":"tag-diario-de-viagem","20":"tag-documentario-en","21":"tag-documentary","22":"tag-filmmaker","23":"tag-firebrand","24":"tag-i-travel-because-i-have-to","25":"tag-idir","26":"tag-invisible-life","27":"tag-iracema","28":"tag-jude-law","29":"tag-karim-ainouz","30":"tag-majid","31":"tag-mariner-of-the-mountains","32":"tag-marinheiro-das-montanhas","33":"tag-nardjes-a","34":"tag-palma-de-ouro","35":"tag-palme-dor","36":"tag-rosebushpruning","37":"tag-seams","38":"tag-travel-diary","39":"tag-viajo-porque-preciso","40":"tag-vida-invisivel"},"wps_subtitle":"The Algerian-descent filmmaker born in Brazil\u2019s Cear\u00e1 is about to launch two new films, Mariner of the Mountains and Nardjes A. They were both shot in Algeria and will premiere in Brazil on September 28. ANBA brings an exclusive interview with the director.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}