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29 Jan – 8 Feb 2026

Bab el-Oued City

Merzak Allouache | Algeria | 1994 | 93' | | IFFR 1995

Algiers, 1988, not long after the bloody October rebellions. The young Boualem works nights in a bakery and sleeps during the day. While he sleeps, the message of Said’s Islamic fundamentalist movement resounds from fifteen loudspeakers through the working-class district. One night Boualem can no longer bear the noise and loses his cool. He tears one of the loudspeakers from the roof and throws it into the sea. This leads Said to take reprisals. The characters in each represent a trend in contemporary Algeria. It is not just in the film that a conflict fed by contradictions and insecurity ends in extremism and violence that affects the whole population.

Film details

Country of production
Algeria
Year
1994
Festival edition
IFFR 1995
Length
93"
Medium/Format
35mm

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