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Youcef Sahraoui

Youcef Sahraoui

Camera

Biography

Youcef Sahraoui (يوسف الصحراوي), born in 1939 in the Casbah of Algiers, this former employee of the RTF joined the maquis in the company of a group of Algerian technicians from the company. While they were on their way to Tunis at the request of M'hamed Yazid, Minister of Information of the Provisional Government (GPRA), they were victims of the so-called "Bleuïte" executions, the famous manipulation operation mounted by the French secret services during the Algerian War, which consisted of putting into circulation lists of alleged collaborators of the French army. Youcef Sahraoui is the only survivor of the group whose victims, Ali Djenaoui and his companions, are declared "disappeared in the maquis". Arrested and imprisoned, released thanks to independence, he then joined the RTA. Youcef Sahraoui quickly distinguished himself as one of the best cinematographers in the country. His filmography includes a large number of films, for television and cinema, including La Nuit afraid du soleil (1965) and L'Incendie (1974) by Mustapha Badie, L'heritage (1974) by Mohamed Bouamari. , The Children of November by Moussa Haddad (1975), Aziza by the Tunisian Abdellatif Ben Ammar (Tun/Alg, 1980), Bouamama by Benamar Bakhti (1983), Wind of Sand (1982) and The Last Image (1986) by Mohamed Lakhdar -Hamina, and, on the eve of his disappearance, The Shadow of the City (2000) by the Lebanese Jean Khalil Chamoun and Father of Naguel Belouad. Rachid Bouchareb, who asked him for Cheb (1991), followed by Poussières de vie (1994), a film nominated for the Oscars, and L'Honneur de ma famille (1997), dedicated Little Sénégal (2000) to him, including Youcef signed the photograph of the Senegalese side. Youcef Sahraoui himself directed a feature film The Silence of the Ashes (1975) as well as a soap opera La Gazelle (1991), both based on scripts by Kaddour M'Hamsadji. Youcef Sahraoui died on July 30, 2000 in Algiers of heart failure.

Known For

Last Image

Seen through the filtered lens of boyhood memories, award-winning director Mohamed Lakhdar-Hamina crafted this half-fictional, half-autobiographical account of a brief period in the history of an Algerian village. It is 1940, and the quiet town is ruled by French colonialists appointed by the Vichy government. Algerians are being called up for service in the Vichy military, and Jews in the village are in danger of deportation. A beautiful young schoolteacher named Claire Boyer (Veronique Jannot) arrives in town and turns every male head within miles, including 14-year-old Mouloud (Merwan Lakhdar-Hamina, the director's son). Simon Attal (Michel Boujenah), a fellow teacher and a Jew, is also attracted to Claire, and so is Mouloud's older brother. Suddenly two murders occur in the village, Simon is in danger of being deported, and the tone shifts from the dreams of boyhood to the realities of manhood.

Last Image

1986Movie