Algeria

Mehdi Charef is a novelist and filmmaker born in 1952 in Maghnia, Algeria, where he lived until his family left in the early 1960s to live in France, where he was trained as a mechanic and worked in a factory. Many of his films and novels focus on the experiences of poor immigrants in modern France and the difficulties of living between two civilizations. Charef's teenage years were spent in slums on the outskirts of Paris. With little time and resources to spend on writing which he wished to do, due to the need to work in a factory to support his family, he became frustrated and later went to prison after getting into trouble with police. He left prison at the age of twenty and decided he would never return. In 1983, his first novel Le Thé au harem d'Archimède (Tea in the Harem) was published. The book was soon optioned by filmmaker Costa-Gavras and made into a film, winning a César, the Jean Vigo and SOS Racisme prizes, the Silver Hugo in Chicago, and the Special Jury Prize at the Madrid International Film Festival. Charef's films, La Maison d'Alexina (1999) and Pigeon volé (1996), were adapted from his novels of the same name.

Filmography

Tea in the Harem / Le Thé au harem d’Archimède (1985)
Miss Mona (1987)
Camomille (1988)
In the Country of Juliets / Au pays des Juliets (1992)
Pigeon volé (1996)
La Maison d’Alexina (1999)
Marie-Line (2000)
Daughter of Keltoum / Bent Keltoum (2001)
All the Invisible Children – Tanza (2005)
Cartouches gauloises / Summer of ’62 (2007)
Chaises musicales (2008)
Graziella (2015)