MASQUERADES
Directed by Lyès Salem
Algeria, 2008 , 94 min.
This first feature film by young actor/director Lyès Salem is a comedy set in the remote, starkly beautiful Aures Mountains of Algeria. Its central character is Mounir (played by the director), a man who longs to be considered successful by his neighbors. He also wants to find a good match for his beautiful sister, except that she has a problem: she is a narcoleptic and keeps falling asleep at key moments. So he invents a wealthy foreign suitor for her (Australian? American? Swedish? In any case, someone blond), and suddenly everyone thinks the world of him. Not surprisingly, his life is deluged by complications. The film received the third-place Bronze Stallion award at FESPACO 2009.
In Arabic with English subtitles.
