The class of 2017 was hosted in Cairo, Egypt, in February, by the Arab Artists Syndicate and the Ministry of Culture of Egypt, in July, in Algiers, Algeria, by the Algerian Center for Film Development in partnership with the French Institute of Algeria. They will be hosted in Marseille, in November, at the MUCEM and by Les Rencontres Internationales de Cinéma Arabe.
It was decided by the judge, in agreement with the parties concerned, that Romain, an 18-year-old high school student from Grenoble, would finish serving his prison sentence with an electronic bracelet at his father's house in a Provençal village. Pierre Fayard, Romain's father, a 40-year-old forester, has not seen his son for 15 years, when he put an end to a chaotic past. Pierre has rebuilt his life with Nadia and has two children aged 12 and 14. Romain comes to disturb the idyllic life of this little family, and quickly finds himself sidelined by the young people of the village, jealous of the magnetism of the stranger...
The film follows a middle-class family in Amman, Jordan, whose lives unfold in apparent normalcy while the eldest son, Basil, in his final year at school, suffers from an unsuspected mental illness. The symptoms begin to reveal themselves, disrupting family life more and more dramatically. The family must then face enormous stress, as well as the pressure of a very coded society.
A young Egyptian, professional footballer, arrives clandestinely in Marseille to realize his dream of being hired by OM. During his journey, he will meet people who will participate in his adventure, each for very personal reasons.
Zina, who lives in Marseille with her son, learns that the Algerian government will compensate women victims of rape during the civil war. His whole past resurfaces. She must make a choice: stay and continue living as if nothing had happened or leave and claim compensation. After much hesitation and fear, she decides to go to Algeria but retracing the traces of her past is not so simple.
In a village where foreign surfers and local Berbers rub shoulders, Khadija, 17, has total admiration for her brother, a young Moroccan surfing prodigy who is preparing for international competitions. But one day, as the waves rage, his brother dies suddenly, leaving behind numerous debts...
After a 25-year career in France, Baya, a former cabaret dancer, returns to Algiers, her hometown. Upset by the lack of freedom of the young girls in her neighborhood, she tries to share with them her passion for dance and to revive the emblematic cabaret “Le Palm Beach” thanks to them. But very quickly, Baya is confronted with the hardening of a society, which her son, Amine, is the first to embody and remind her of.
Raised the hard way by her big brother Salim, Raïa, 21, craves freedom. Her brother's unexpected offer changes her destiny when she agrees to become the bodyguard of Manal, a flamboyant Arab princess on summer vacation in Geneva. Trained on the job, armed with a pistol, Raïa becomes Nico, a pseudonym that opens the doors to this merciless world for her...
An African teenager lives illegally without papers with his blind mother in an abandoned barge on the banks of the Tiber, in the heart of Rome. He will put this precarious and fragile life in danger to save a young Italian girl from the waters of the river. Hoping for a miracle for his mother's health, he tries to contact the Pope, but the result will only be deep disillusionment, the loss of his innocence, but perhaps also a new life...
Magali Negroni holds a DEA from the University of Paris 8. Her research focused on Saül Bass. She began her career as an assistant director and went on to become a director, working on short films, commercials and documentaries that have been selected for competition in Berlin, New York and at the César awards.
Currently, she works as a scriptwriter and consultant mainly in the Middle East and Maghreb countries, as well as being a reader for Cinémas du Monde. In collaboration with Virginie Legeay, she co-wrote and produced the following films: "Les Jours d'avant" by Karim Moussaoui, "Hédi" by Mohamed Ben Attia, both of which won prizes in Berlin, and "The Translator" by Rana Kazkaz, which won the Prix Cinéfondation and was acquired by Arte.
Jamal Belmahi was born in Morocco to a Moroccan father and an Austrian mother. A screenwriter for more than a decade, he has written several TV formats and also two film projects (Les Chevaux de Dieu, dir. Nabil Ayouch, Adieu l'Afrique Director: Pierre-Alain Meier). He is currently developing several projects, including Idir Serghine's first feature film.
He is a consultant on several series in Morocco and Algeria, a member of the CNC commission for the financial contribution for short films and one of the founding members of a French association of professional screenwriters: the SCA (Scénaristes de Cinéma Associés).
Lyes Salem is an Algerian actor and director born in 1973. He studied Lettres Modernes at the Sorbonne, then continued his training at the École du Théâtre National de Chaillot and the Conservatoire National d'Art Dramatique. After graduating in 1998, he performed plays by Shakespeare, Molière, Büchner and Ostrovski in some of the leading national theaters.
In cinema and television, he has appeared in films by Maurice Failevic, Benoît Jacquot and Hamid Krim. In 2001, Lyes directed his first short film, "Jean-Farès", which was widely selected at national and international festivals. His second short film, "Cousines", shot in Algiers, won the César for best short film in 2005. He has also appeared as an actor in films such as "Alex", "Banlieue 13", "Munich", "A ton image", "L'école de la chair", "Filles uniques", "Délice Paloma" and in the series "L'Affaire Ben Barka".
2008 saw Lyes Salem return to the camera to direct his first feature film, "Mascarades", in which he also plays the lead role, that of Mounir. Mounir is a young Algerian whose sister Salima is ridiculed in the village because of her narcolepsy. The film earned him a 2009 César nomination for Best First Film. His second feature film is "L'oranais" (2014).
Marcel Beaulieu is a screenwriter born in 1952 in Canada. He began his career in 1978 writing radio plays for Radio Canada1. Working in Quebec, France and Europe, he has collaborated on over eighty works, with Léa Pool, Francis Leclerc, Yves Simoneau, Michel Langlois and others. In 1997, he founded a screenplay teaching program at the Institut national de l'image et du son (INIS) in Montreal. He is best known for Gérard Corbiau's Farinelli (nominated for an Oscar in 1995 for Best Foreign Film and winner of the Golden Globe for Foreign Film).
