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‘WWHERE WORDS ARE SILENT, the film SPEAKS…” proclaims the big banner.” “CINEMA AS A WEAPON” are some of the words written on the board. Father Britain intended as a visual representation in the same way that films and decorative sculptures are made. And these words raise questions: if art is a tool, then who uses it, what war is being fought, and does it work? What kind of silence is being maintained, and who is speaking out against it?
To answer these questions, Sedira gives an example of Algerian Cinemathequewhich became a mecca for left-wing African filmmakers after its launch in 1965. Shown in a model cinema with folding chairs, this short film is about a film director, Boudjemaâ Karèche. That he wears a beret well can tell you something, and this is confirmed by his movie history in the 1970s. This was a place where smart and thoughtful young people met to watch revolutionary works of art, argue about how to make the world a better place, and hope to sleep with other smart and thoughtful young people.
That’s not meant to sound rushed. The artist’s pleasure in an Algerian cafe in Paris, circa 1974, argues that the desires should not be different. Music plays through the jukebox, the bar serves wine and couscous, and the tables are scattered with books about left-wing cinema. Enjoying the state of the head, I take the point that the intellectual life should not be separated from the pursuit of pleasure, and that there is no contradiction in talking about injustice while drinking with friends. This is a very French point to make, for all I agree, and the phrase “good-looking wine” may be taking shape in the reader’s mind.
But the Sedira implementation works. You want to know more about the story he tells, because it is presented with a charm proven by technical skills and deep with your feelings. In this respect it fulfills Karèche’s insistence that, however important a film’s political message is, it must first function as a film. If it doesn’t have to be sensationalism, then any artistic work with a political conscience must also entertain people and not pretend to be impartial. And it’s clear that Sedira, who was born in Paris to Algerian parents and has lived in London since 1986, isn’t saying she’s not interested. This is not only a historical study, but also an attempt to rebuild a place that the artist can call home from the brutal history of Algeria’s liberation from France, and where he can identify himself as a member of the diaspora and an artist he interacts with.
Great care has been put into the details. A manager on a vintage jukebox plays videos from Agnès Varda’s Salut les Cubains; the images in the films are cartoons; the interior of the mobile cinema has been painstakingly recreated; James Baldwin’s painting of Paris and the Palestinian pen show the harmony that art can express. This paean to the wisdom of love beckons that, after a while, you come to wish that the bar was working, that the crowd was happy. Indeed, you wish you were at the Tate Britain on a Tuesday morning but at the cinema in Algiers at night, in the late 1960s.
Here are the issues that are clearly stated in the final film of the show. When the Pan-African cultural festival of 1969 (the Sedira touchstone) was re-established 40 years later, its transformative power was gone. Artists who once shared accommodation with friends now sought hotels and motor vehicles. At the opening William Klein, whose records of the first festival keep, had a question for the organizers. “We were revolutionaries,” he said, “that’s why we started this festival.”
We are told that the question “froze the room”, and it also disrupts the show. The restoration of changing times in museums can be seen as preserving them in aspic, consigning them to history. And if evolution is coming, after all, it will be shown on our phones and not in movies. Is the show merely glimmering, or will it inspire the very change that the filmmakers celebrate?
Once again, the Cinémathèque Algérienne offers a lesson: you don’t become a revolutionary artist by watching films or even making them yourself, but by opening up that opportunity to others. Therefore, the ability to change things very much makes everyone feel free to express their opinions. It does so by providing examples of people, and interesting people, by insisting that art cannot be reserved for those with money or degrees, and above all by making it seem like something you want to spend your time doing and doing that will make your life richer and happier and more connected to other people. Of these, the Sedira show is the best.
