HARRAGAS, Arrière-plan

Synopsis

Frontignan, January 2009. In the biting cold of this bitter winter a film is being made. As if it was an emergency. Most of the sequences happen in the water, in a miserable little boat, into which are squeezed several young men and a young woman, all Algerian. That’s in the script. It’s the story of the Harragas, which means the ‘burners’. They choose to make their past go up in smoke by burning their papers. They prefer to risk everything rather than stay in their country. It’s not easy shooting in these conditions, sitting on a barge for hours on end, bouncing up and down on the winter waves of the Mediterranean. The technicians are in an endless confrontation with the sea. It’s no super-production. The young actors seem intimidated by the situation. They stick together and don’t mix with the film crew. Some of them only speak Arabic and feel rather lost in the port of Frontignan.