Daughter of Keltoum

Mr. Mehdi Charef is a writer and a filmmaker, as such, he is a pioneer. Mehdi Charef was born in Algeria in 1952. He moved to Paris with his family in 1964 and worked in an engineering factory in the suburbs after leaving school.
In 1983, when his novel Thé Au Harem D’Archimède, hit the public through the Mercure de France, he was one among few to be unveiling the universe of French housing projects: a forgotten, separate and unexpected world. Violence and incomprehension, difference and exclusion are denounced through his crude, on the edge style of writing before these issues came to be noticed by mainstream media.

Costa Gravas sensed Mr.Charef’s talent and bought the rights to this first novel proposing him, thereby, to come into the world of Cinema. After the major success of Thé Au Harem D’Archimède, (Winner of the Cesar Award, Victor Hugo Award, SOS Racisme Award, Madrid Grand Festival Award, etc.), Mr. Charef’s writing and filmmaking careers seem to be following an ideal path with: Miss Mona, with Jean Carmet in 1986; Camomille, with Philippine Leroy Beaulieu in 1988; Le Harki de Meriem, a novel published at the Mercure de France in 1989; Au Pays des Juliets, (Cannes Film Festival Official Selection), in 1992;

Pigeon Vole, with Philippe Leotard, produced for Arte in 1995; La Maison d’Alexina, novel published at the Mercure de France and subsequently shot for Arte in 1999; Marie Line, with Murielle Robin, (Grand Jury prize by the City of Sarlat and winner as Best Film at the Albi film Festival), in 2000 and La Fille de Keltoum, (Official selection in Toronto), in 2002. After writing and directing Tanza, for All the Invisible Children, Mr. Charef has directed his play 1962 at Théatre Montparnasse in Paris and is now preparing his next feature about the Algerian War, titled Cartouches Gauloises. —MK Films