Gus Van Sant to moderate Q&A with Penny Allen!
An "intimate, turbulent portrait of a French-Algerian-Moroccan family residing in Algeria and adrift following the death of their mother, Zineb, a notorious smuggler of gold and jewels. Filmed over the course of three years, the film finds its own space between documentary and fiction as the family’s story brings to life the complexities of cross-border identities, the influence of political context on individual lives, and the importance of the mother figure in Arab/Islamic cultures."
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
French-American director Penny Allen’s first feature
Property
, made in Portland, Oregon, was a prize-winner at the first Sundance festival in 1978. Mala Noche author Walt Curtis played a community organizer in the film, and the young Gus Van Sant recorded sound and discovered Walt’s book, which he later adapted for his own first feature. In 1981, Penny Allen finished her second feature
Paydirt
, the story of wine growers who grow marijuana to finance their vineyard.
In 2008, she finished
The Soldier’s Tale
, a prize-winner at the 2009 festival Visions du Réel in Nyon. In 2013 came
Late for My Mother’s Funeral
, a feature about a family adrift after the death of their mother, an Algerian smuggler. And also
The Didier Connection
, a documentary short about a little French boy arriving in Portland. Allen is also a writer (
A Geography of Saints, Metaphors for Change
), author of photo strips (
War is Hell, La Guerre c’est l’enfer
), and she worked on environmental issues from 1987 to 2002. Earlier, she was a social worker, a university instructor, a journalist, and a community organizer in land-use planning.