The Blond Boy from the Casbah
Le petit blond de la casbah
aka Once Upon a Time in Algeria
Director/Writer: Alexandre Arcady
France | 2024 | French & Arabic with English subtitles | 128 min
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE
Winner – Best Film, UK Jewish Film Festival
A joyful and nostalgic love letter to the Algiers of French filmmaker Alexandre Arcady’s youth, this enchanting semi-autobiographical drama recreates the vibrant Mediterranean city of the late 1950s-early 1960s. Fifteen year old Antoine’s (Léo Campion) coming-of-age is filled with the antics of his father, an ex-French Foreign Legion soldier with dubious claims to Hungarian nobility (Christian Berkel, Valkyrie), his beautiful, resilient Algerian Jewish mother (Marie Gillain, Coco Before Chanel)), and a lively quirky extended family. In his neighborhood where Jews, Muslims and Christians have lived together for generations, Antoine falls for Josette, the clever girl upstairs, and even harder for the storytelling power of cinema. But as Algeria’s fight for independence intensifies, Antoine’s idyllic world is threatened by growing unrest and the uncertain fate of his close-knit Jewish community.
Years later, Antoine (played as an adult by Patrick Mille), now a famous filmmaker, returns to Algiers with his son to premiere his new film, a stirring reflection on his childhood in Algeria. As he retraces his steps through the city that shaped him, he revisits a vivid tapestry of laughter, loss, family and identity.
Le petit blond de la casbah is adapted from Alexandre Arcady memoir of the same name. Born in Algiers in 1947, Arcady moved with his family to France as a teenager. He is a prolific filmmaker and several of his films have Jewish themes and characters, including 24 Days, What the Day Owes the Night, and For a Woman (NCJF premiered in 2014), which he made with his wife, the French-Jewish filmmaker Diane Kurys directing.
– Preceded by –
No Harm Done / Même pas mal
Director: Sarah Stern
France | 2023 | French with English subtitles | 18 minutes
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE
On the afternoon of her son’s bris (circumcision) in Paris, Mila finds herself dealing with a houseful of family members and doubts about a tradition she never questioned. Sarah Stern wrote, directed and stars in this funny charming short film.
