Synopsis
After 62 years of living together, Lina’s grandparents, Aïcha and Mabrouk, have decided to separate. Together, they came from Algeria to Thiers, a small medieval town in the middle of France, over 60 years ago. Side by side, they have experienced this chaotic immigrant life. For Lina, their separation is an opportunity to question their long journey of exile and their silence.
A word from Tënk
Their Algeria begins with a family archive. Lina Soualem's father (actor Zinedine Soualem) films her parents Aïcha and Mabrouk, in the company of their granddaughter, a future filmmaker. "Speak a little Arabic between you there, it's shameful!'' The absence of words, of a language, of a transmission… 25 years later, the filmmaker decides to dig into this absence and into the eyes of her grandparents to understand what they did not transmit to her. Aisha, behind her nervous laughter, hides the life of a woman who was married too young and who, in the twilight of her life, decides to finally live for herself. For Mabrouk, the silent one, it is a life of hard work, that of an immigrant worker in the factories of Thiers, a world in disappearance.
This couple of Algerians uprooted as teenagers, recruited to rebuild France after the war, never nationalized, always considered as "foreigners", have not seen their country again, and will take with them their inner torments, always kept silent. Lina Soualem, in this search for traces to understand herself, delivers a moving portrait of a family history that resonates with so many others.
Aurélien Marsais
Programmer, producer
