In the streets of Algiers, jacaranda trees bloom like scattered fragments of memory. Following the trail laid out by his father Ameziane, a writer fascinated by these purple trees, filmmaker Hassen Ferhani roams the city, exploring transmission, love and the act of looking. Through wanderings, interviews, archives and pages from a novel, the trees become accomplices in an inquiry that is both concrete and symbolic, where writing, filming and choosing beauty are acts of resistance. From one jacaranda to the next, the film seeks less definitive answers than a way of seeing the world, a renewed disposition to be astonished by Algiers, its details and the people who inhabit it. Alea Jacarandas thus draws an intimate portrait of a father, a city and a cinematic gesture that turns absence into vital energy.
With: Hassen Ferhani, Ameziane Ferhani
screenplay: Hassen Ferhani, Ameziane Ferhani, Juliette Flamant
cinematography: Hassen Ferhani
editing: Léa Chatauret, Rodolphe Molla
sound: Hocine Mellal, Karim Moussaoui, Lamine Bouaziz
music: Hakim Hamadouche
production: Eugénie Michel-Villette, Les Films du Bilboquet, Oualid Baha, Tact production, Hassen Ferhani, Karim Moussaoui