22.05.2017 | In conversation with Karim Moussaoui
"Waiting for Swallows" (En Attendant Les Hirondelles) opens in German cinemas on 23 August and tells the story of an Algeria that is trying to realign itself. Directors Karim Moussaoui's film premiered in Cannes in 2017 and also screened at Filmfest Hamburg. However, the Hanseatic city was not an unknown spot on the map for Moussaoui - as the post production of his film also took place here in the north.
In March 2017, when we meet Moussaoui in the LOFT studios in Hamburg, he doesn't want to know anything about the Cannes Film Festival. "They haven't got in touch yet," is his modest statement. The fact that the trade press was already relatively certain to see his film in the festival programme didn't faze him.
But then what the swallows were already whistling from the rooftops materialised: The film celebrated its world premiere in Cannes in the 'Un Certain Regard' section and was later also shown at the Filmfest Hamburg. The international production, which was produced on the German side by Niko Film, is set in today's Algeria: three stories paint a contrasting picture of a country torn between the burden of tradition and the pursuit of modernity. Moussaoui is one of the few Algerian filmmakers and thus an important voice for the country.
"It's difficult to make a film in Algeria. Financial support is anything but reliable, and there are no film schools and therefore no trained professionals. Everything is learning by doing," Moussaoui tells us in Hamburg. This makes international co-productions all the more important for him and his Algerian colleagues. They work a lot with France in particular or, as in this case, with Germany.
Many other Algerian filmmakers would sooner or later emigrate to France. For Moussaoui, this is out of the question: "It's a very exciting time in Algeria right now, a time of reorientation. Although the political situation is still very volatile, the country has been undergoing social change since the end of the civil war in the 1990s. "And when I tell stories about my home country, I also have to live there".
