Zanj Revolution

Thwara Zanj

DIRECTOR: Tariq Teguia  COUNTRIES: Algeria, France, Qatar, Lebanon   YEAR: 2013   LANGUAGE(S): French, Arabic   SUBTITLES: English   RUNNING TIME: 137 min  

SECTION: International Forum 2015

SYNOPSIS

A city in southern Algeria: The reporter Ibn Battuta is researching uprisings in the region and comes across the story of the Zanj, a group of black slaves that rose against the Abbasid Caliphate in the eighth century at al-Basrah in modern-day Iraq. Fascinated by the stories, he starts tracing their history. His journey takes him to Beirut and right into the battles and hopes of the Arab world.

Full of anger, Tariq Teguia develops an enthralling road movie about Arab emancipation. Like his main character, he is on a quest for an alternative to religious fundamentalism on the one hand and capitalist hegemony on the other. In terms of style, Teguia follows in the footsteps of the French ”Nouvelle Vague“, making a film that is full of poetry and has wonderful camera work. The images, places and characters don’t only serve the plot, but are also elements that themselves are full of references to the analysis which ranges from the situation of the Zanj slaves to that of the Palestinians, to Arabs and the world in general. Political cinema a la Godard.

TARIQ TEGUIA
Tariq Teguia was born in Algiers in 1966. He studied philosophy, art and film theory in Paris and later worked as an art teacher and freelance photographer. In 1992, he made his first short film, KECH’MOUVEMENT with Yacine Teguia. His film INLAND won the FIPRESCI Award at the Venice Film Festival in 2008. Algeria had largely formed the main focus of his interest but in ZANJ REVOLUTION he expanded the map, examining the connections between Algeria and Europe across the Mediterranean. Teguia’s cinematic ideas are rooted in his own experiences, which include his journeys to Egypt, Syria, Greece, Lebanon and the United States.

FILMOGRAPHY
Kech’mouvement (1992), The Dog (1996), Ferailles d’attente (1998), The Fence (2002), Rome Rather Than You (2006), Inland (2008), Zanj Revolution (2013)

SCRIPT: Yacine Teguia, Tariq Teguia   CAMERA: Nasser Medikane, Hacène Aït Kaci   EDITOR: Rodolphe Molla   MUSIc: Magyar Posse, Ash Ra Temple, Lena Platonos   CAST: Fethi Ghares, Diana Sabri, John W. Peake, Sean Gullette

PRODUCTION: Neffa Films, Zendj, Mirrors, le fresnoy, Captures   WORLD SALES: Yacine Teguia, Neffa Films