The Repentant

Le Repenti

A hauntingly powerful tale of a reformed Algerian fundamentalist attempting to reintegrate into society only to find some secrets impossible to hide.

Even if a screening is sold out, tickets are often available 30 minutes before the start of the film at the box office at each venue.


Image gallery

  • Director-Screenwriter Merzak Allouache
  • Producer Yacine Djadi
  • With Adila Bendimerad, Khaled Benaissa, Nabil Asli
  • Algeria-France 2012
  • 87 mins
  • Sales Doc & Film International

Algerian director Merzak Allouache delves deep into his country’s tortured soul with this powerful look at the lingering effects of extremism and civil conflict. During the 1990s, Algeria suffered a civil war between the government and Islamic fundamentalists that left tens of thousands of people dead. As part of a deal to end the violence, the Algerian government offered amnesty to any jihadists who would come down from their mountain hideouts, renounce violence and re-integrate themselves into everyday society. One such ‘repentant’ is Rachid who, with the help of a kindly police officer, finds a job in a cafe. Then he meets an embittered local pharmacist, paving the way for the disclosure of secrets that have the potential to tear them apart, and leading to an emotionally devastating finale that audiences will find unforgettable.
Ali Jaafar

Director statement

In 1999, when I returned to Algeria after seven years’ absence, I found a country in the midst of an amazing, unreal, optimism. The violence was beginning to pull back. A policy of ‘civil concord’ was put forward to the Algerian people, to allow, supposedly, a total end to violence. We learned through the press that secret contacts were made between the army and the Islamists, who were underground, that would quickly allow their return home and put an end to massacres, ambushes, and bomb attacks... The Algerians discovered a new word: ‘repentant’ which designated those who laid down arms and placed themselves under the authority of the State. With a wounded country, the State encouraged its people to forget, to reconcile… I wondered how the families of thousands of victims of horror would react to this new situation as, by the hundreds, terrorists left the underground claiming they did not have ‘blood on their hands’. As ‘good business’ picked up… We were all becoming ‘brothers’ again, as if by magic... It is during this ‘euphoric’ period that I discovered a small article telling the terrible story of a man who was contacted by a ‘repentant’. He was offered a horrible deal. The man, shocked, wrote a letter to the newspaper. Then nothing... Had he accepted? This story haunted me so much that I decided to make this film in today’s Algeria, where amnesia is prevalent, the artificial optimism is gone, and where in certain regions the terrorist violence is still as deadly with the corollary repression and restrictions of liberties. In this film I try, quite simply, to imagine the future of this policy of ‘civil concord’ after such hatred.
Merzak Allouache

Director biography

Born in 1944 in Bab el Oued, he studied filmmaking in Algiers at the Institut National du Cinéma and finished his studies at the IDHEC film school in Paris. In 1976, he directed his first feature film Omar Gatlato. He lived in France again from 1983 to 1988, and then returned to Algeria, there directing Bab el Oued City in 1993. The violent events that then shook Algeria once more forced him to leave, and he has settled in Paris to this day, though directing films both in France and in Algeria.

Filmography

1977 Omar Gatlato
1979 Mughamarat batal
1986 L’homme qui regardait les fenêtres
1987 Un amour à Paris
1989 L’après-octobre [doc]
1994 Bab el Oued City
1995 Lumière et cie (Lumière and Company) [one ep]
1996 Salut cousin!; Dans la décapotable [TV s]
1998 Alger-Beyrouth: Pour mémoire [TV]
2001 À bicyclette [TV]; L’Autre Monde
2003 Chouchou
2005 Bab el web
2008 Tamanrasset [TV]
2009 Harragas
2011 Tata bakhta [TV]; Normal!
2012 La Baie d’Alger [TV]; Le Repenti (The Repentant)