Leur Algérie

After being married for 62 years, Aïcha and Mabrouk decide to get a divorce. Even though they live in separate flats, Aïsha keeps caring for the man who she accompanied out of Algeria all those years ago. Granddaughter Lina is shocked by the news. She digs into the family history. Why did her grandparents come to France from Algeria? And why did they never go back? Behind her grandmother’s smile and her grandfather’s silent indifference, there is a story of many migrants. Leur Algérie is an intimate family portrait that delicately sheds a light on the personal impact of migration through generations. Identity is very complex and the country where your forefathers were born, is an integral part of it.

Through intimate interviews with her grandparents and father, memory-inducing images and archives, Lina Soualem tries to find her own place in her family history. Even though Mabrouk wants to forget the past, director Lina shows that his struggle with these memories shows just as much as the cheerful conversations with her grandmother.