Safy Boutella

Safy Boutella

75 (1950-01-06)
Pirmasens, Germany

Most Known for...

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Salut cousin ! 1996 (4.2)

The comedy in this lively film barely conceals its darker, more serious undertones as it chronicles a young Algerian's eye-opening introduction to the joys and travails of being an immigrant in Paris. Alilo has left his home to pick up an important suitcase for his employer. Unfortunately, he has lost the Parisian address. Fortunately, his cousin Mok, emigrated there several years before with his middle-class family before and is able to act as a guide. Mok, an aspiring rap singer, comes from a middle-class family, but chooses to live on his own in the dilapidated deteriorating 18th district, known as 'Moskova.' Mok characterizes the place as a haven for artists and intellectuals, but it is plainly just a Third World slum filled with tightly knit and colorful neighbors. Mok and Alilo have many interesting, some tragedy-tinged adventures over the five days it takes them to find the suitcase.
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The Kid from Chaaba 1998 (6.5)

Le Gone du Chaâba (The Kid of the Chaaba), translated into English as Shantytown Kid by Naima Wolf, is an autobiographical novel by Azouz Begag about his life as a young Algerian boy growing up in a shantytown next to Lyon, France, called the Chaâba by its inhabitants. The story covers a period of approximately three years in the life of the protagonist and deals with issues developing from the clash between two cultures, that of France and that of North Africa, as well as the difficulties of finding a cultural identity between the two. The story focuses on the cultural differences between the Arab and French communities, as well as how the two groups react to each other
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Little Senegal 2001 (6.1)

Fascinated by the history of his people, Alloune, an old guide at the African museum "La Maison des Esclaves" in Gorée, sets off on a pilgrimage to find the descendants of his ancestors in the United States. This moving journey takes him from the coast of South Carolina to the Harlem neighborhood of Little Senegal, home to the African community. Driven by the idea of reuniting his family across centuries and borders, Alloune traces his roots to a distant cousin, Ida, who knows nothing of his past. The old man also crosses paths with his nephew Hassan, a clandestine cab driver, his fiancée Biram, Eileen, pregnant and a runaway, and Karim, who is seeking a sham marriage to obtain a green card. All four misunderstand Alloune's quest.