France,
1995, 100 min
Shown in 1996
CREDITS
- dir
-
Malik Chibane
- prod
-
Antonio Olivares
- scr
-
Malik Chibane
- cam
-
Georges Lechaptois
- editor
-
Alice Lary
- cast
-
Hakim Sahraoui, Frédéric Diefenthal, Fadila Belkebla, Séloua Hamse, Saïda Bekkouche, Fettouma Bouamari
- source
-
Alhambra Films
- premiere
-
North American Premiere
OTHER
“Douce France, cher pays de mon enfance” (“Sweet France, dear land of my childhood”) is a famous Charles Trenet song from the ’40s. It’s heard again in this film, but with a distinctive Arab twist. We’re now in the France of the ’90s, where the outer suburbs of Paris are roiling with ethnic tension and poised for an explosion of violence. This has been a rich theme for French cinema in recent years with such films as La Hain and Bye Bye (SFIFF 1996)—immigrants and children of immigrants fenced off from their future. But Douce France handles it differently. Chibane, an Algerian-born French national, takes on second generation Arab immigrants and unemployment, Islam, women and the veil (see also On Boys, Girls and the Veil, SFIFF 1996) with a joyous, lighthearted comic sensibility. Next thing you know, a fond mother is using her impending open heart surgery to blackmail her son into marriage. Farida, who proudly displays both the chador and her own traditional beliefs; Souad, her rebellious older sister whose boyish haircut announces her allegiance to Western culture; Moussa and his friend Jean-Luc hustling to make it as junior entrepreneurs—they’re an unexpectedly sweet and refreshing alternative to alienated, angry youth. Douce France is a generous and delightful comedy about immigrant life and young Arabs trying to pin down a cultural identity that fits their needs.
—Marie-Pierre Macia
FACTOID #232
Our first seminar at the Festival was entitled Censorship and the Actor’s Art: A Symposium, featuring panelists Michael Mayer and Lou Greenspan at Grace Cathedral, October 24, 1966.
