Tell us a bit about yourself - all the basics! Where you’re from, where you grew up, interests, hobbies, siblings, causes you’re passionate about, anything else that comes to mind…

I'm Algerian, based in Paris for nearly nine years now. Still not French. Neither in my heart nor on paper. I grew up in western Algeria, deep inland, where there’s nothing much to do except wait for a chance to reach the capital, or cross the Mediterranean. And looking back, I realize it’s from that emptiness that the urge, the need to create was born.

How did you become interested in film?

My first encounter with storytelling came through lying. I was a big liar as a child. I’d let my imagination overflow, unfold, to invent stories I would repeat to the other kids around me. As a teenager, I became a cinephile, and that’s when I started dreaming of cinema. Later, in France, I discovered auteur documentary filmmaking and began carving out a path for myself, without going through film school. Contrary to what might be expected, I chose to do a Master’s in production rather than directing, because I didn’t want my vision to be shaped by cinematic codes destined to be recycled. What I did want, though, was to learn what I might not have been able to grasp otherwise: how to navigate money.

How did you arrive at the subject of your Close Up project?

In 2019, a friend gifted me a little handycam. I went back to Algiers for the summer. The Hirak erupted, a popular uprising led mostly by young people that ended up toppling the long-time dictator Bouteflika. At the same time, my sister, who had stayed in Algiers, was part of a budding electronic music scene. The city had become a playground for possibility. I wanted to capture that energy, between the protests in the streets by day and the dancefloors by night. But the project fell through, just like the dream of a free Algeria and a sovereign youth. A few years later, I looked back at the footage and saw one character standing out. Someone my camera kept returning to, instinctively, relentlessly. It was my sister, Hana. I found myself revisiting those images of her, somehow free in her own land, whenever I felt homesick, whenever I needed to feel a sense of belonging. Little by little, and with the support of my two producers, Aurore Laurent and François Combin from Urubu Films, the story grew into a parallel exploration of our journeys, my sister’s and mine, on either side of the Mediterranean.

If you weren’t a filmmaker, what might you be? What did you want to do or be growing up?

I never really thought about anything other than cinema, until it came time to choose a field of study. So I went for something broad, like the humanities and social sciences. Later on, I developed an interest in research, but that came well into adulthood. But if we're talking about passion, nothing has ever driven me the way the desire to make films has.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

To worry about nothing but preserving her creativity and her desire to tell stories. I know she won’t understand, because all she has right now is that creativity, and what she wants is to learn the craft, the techniques, the rules of the trade, where to go, which doors to knock on. But what I want to tell her is that everything can be learned. The most precious thing she has, the one thing truly worth protecting, is her creativity and her hunger to create.

Other than documentaries of course, what’s your favorite film genre and why?

Naturalistic cinema. I’m someone who tends to romanticize everything a little, the small gestures that shape human relationships, the organic flow of what surrounds me. And when I discovered the films of Tony Gatlif, Abdellatif Kechiche or Andrea Arnold, I was struck by cinema’s ability to weave a transparent thread between illusion and reality. That, above all, is what first drew me in.

What has influenced your work as a filmmaker the most? A person, an educator, another filmmaker, a film itself, an experience, etc.?

My grandmother. I lived with her for the first nine years of my life. We shared the same room, and every night, without fail, she would reach out her hand, rough from years of housework and the life she had endured. Then she would tell me a story. Sometimes it was the same one, but each time she added new details, as if she were moving through version 1, 2, 3, 4 of the script. And now, in the solitude of writing, I can still feel the dry wrinkles of her comforting hands. And I keep going, version 1, 2, 3, 4…

If you could have coffee with any filmmaker, living or dead, who would it be and why?

Tony Gatlif, without hesitation. A Kabyle Gypsy who slipped onto a boat from Algeria and arrived in Marseille, got into trouble as a kid, and went on to become, at least in my eyes, the most brilliant filmmaker of exile and identity. How could I not want to spend an afternoon with him

Is there an anecdote about your project you’d like to share?

One time, I was supposed to film a night out with my sister. The owner of the place was extremely paranoid, it was one of those many spots in Algiers’ nightlife where filming is strictly forbidden. I wanted to capture a moment of my sister freshening up in the bathroom, but the comings and goings started to seem suspicious. All the staff had their eyes on my big bag, where the camera was hidden. The fear of being kicked out replaced the joy we’d felt about being there together. I turned off the camera, zipped up the bag, and thought to myself: sometimes there are things you live, and others you film. And that night, I lived, and it turned out to be unforgettable.

What accomplishment thus far are you most proud of?