Artist Katia Kameli is on her way to Algiers for a month-long film development workshop with five promising filmmakers from Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. We caught up with her at the opening of New Cartography at Cornerhouse.

The driving force behind the project, Katia is determined to give filmmakers from North Africa the opportunities to develop their ideas and their artistic vision in a professional environment.

It all started with the 2006 initiative Bledi in Progress. "In 2004, while filming Bledi a possible scenario, I went to the University of Ben Aknoun and Fine Arts of Algiers and saw their obvious lack of audiovisual equipment.  The students felt quite frustrated with the representations of Algeria abroad and the lack of  a "home grown" outlook on Algerian society on the international artistic scene. The idea for a month long workshop to develop their projects came from these discussions." 

5 films were produced during the month and toured major international festivals and exhibitions. Above all, these workshops really changed the outlook of the participants and they have all taken giant steps towards a professional carrer in video and film. You can watch all 5 films (or extracts) produced during Bledi in Progress on the Belle Ville website (in French) .

Now Trans Maghreb takes the adventure even further, opening up collaboration, exchange and opportunities between Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia - the three countries known as "Maghreb".

“We put a call out for scripts last year and selected the filmmakers on the strength of their ideas" says Katia. “We received over 70 applications and have selected 5 really strong proposals. I am going there on Saturday and I'm bringing a DOP, sound engineer, visual artist and editor with me to help them turn their project into reality."

Having a specialised team on a film production is of vital importance to Katia and she is keen for the young filmmakers to understand how all these elements contribute to the artistic process.

"I am pretty much able to do most roles on a film. If I have to, I can edit, do the sound and everything else but working with a team of specialised professionals makes for far superior work; not only technically but creatively. Nowadays, I would never embark on one of my own projects without my editor and my sound engineer. Not only do their technical skills manage to produce some amazing work I could not achieve to the same level but working as a team really helps to take a step back, focus and produce the work to its full potential. After spending hours shooting and working on a scene, you find it hard to let go of it, even if it does not bring anything to your work as a whole. You need an editor to help you make these harsh decisions (and tell you off!). Sometimes if you do it all yourself you are not always capable of that".

Katia also feels very strongly about bringing a visual artist - other than herself - to the project. " I want the participants to realise how video art is an integral and important part of film practice and to see for themselves the different approach and perspective a visual artist has on filmmaking; it makes them reflect on their practice and opens up new avenues they can explore"

The month will be divided between reworking the scripts, shooting and editing. A  further 5 people who submitted a project but were not selected will be invited as assistants so they can hone their skills in all various aspects of filmmaking.

Talking to Katia reminded us how much these kinds of initiatives are important; "in Algiers there is one cinema school but they don't have a sound department - that's one fundamental aspect of filmmaking that is not even touched upon at film school for lack of technical facilities. The filmmaking scene is still in its infancy throughout the Maghreb and professional and technical means are extremely sparse compared to what is available in Europe.

Culturally, producing video work is not easily accepted by the population at large; it can be difficult to shoot video in Algeria, even taking pictures is frown upon. There is a real distrust of the camera.

This was illustrated by one of last year's filmmaker work. Amina Zoubir's Prends le bus et regardes is an experimental film depicting Algiers’s inhabitants everyday life through their daily bus journeys. "Shooting the film in buses was not easy but easier than we thought. We actually got quite a lot of good responses to the presence of a video crew on the bus from the passengers," says Katia " but when the film was screened in the cinema there was a massive uproar. I remember some people shouting "You should be ashamed of yourself! How can you do this to your parents?" There is still a big cultural barrier to overcome.

It’s been a lot of work putting this project together from scratch – including finding all the funding. Katia’s drive was really impressive, as well as that of her team. “I have a colleague in Algiers who is sorting out all the practicalities; she’s amazing she’s sorting out at least 3 problems a day everyday. Her work is absolutely vital in making this happen”.

Good luck to the selected filmmakers Faouzi Boudjemai; Sophia Djama; Khaled Hafi, Amine Hattou and Abdelaziz Zerrou and to the Trans Maghreb team - we're looking forward to seeing the resulting films