04/11/2002 - The French director of Les Diables and Le gone du Chaaba speaks about his poetry, his Algerian childhood, racism and writing to explore two cultures

The 17th edition of France Cinéma will take place in Florence from 4-10 November. The programme features a wide-ranging look at the best of last season’s genre-driven French films like Yamina Bachir’s socially committed Rachida, Laurent Bouhnik’s literary 24 heures dans la vie d’une femme, Claude Berri’s psychological drama la femme de ménage, Nicolas Philibert’s look at adolescence,Etre et Avoir. The programme also includes the second feature by a young filmmaker called Christophe Ruggia entitled Les Diables.

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Ruggia was born in Algeria to a Franco-Italian family and grew up in Africa and France. He is in Rome to present his directorial feature debut, Le gone du Chaâba (1997). Based on an Algerian novel, Le gone du Chaâba is about the problems that the 1960s wave of north-African immigrants to France encountered and the hero of the piece is a boy called Omar. He lives in a run-down village together with hundreds of other Algerian immigrants from Omar’s home town.
“My films are about children,” said Ruggia, “but they are also about me. It is desire I have for introspection to try to understand what brought me to make the choices I did, but also to help young people who are entering this rather difficult world.”

Why did you choose Azouz Begag’s autobiographical novel for your directorial debut?
“It was a “coup de foudre”. Despite not being an Algerian, and never having lived in a bidonville, I considered the hero of this story to be a sort of alter ego. The way he grew up is very similar to what happened to me, especially his feeling divided between two cultures, Arab and French, and his profound solitude. And especially his relationship with books and literature, instruments he uses to investigate and understand the events he experiences.”

Omar is a nine-year old whereas the protagonists of your second feature, Les Diables, are a little older. Is this coincidence or do you have a special interest in the world of children?
“It was never my intention to make a trilogy about childhood, not consciously at least. I think that this random decision of mine depends on an inner instinctive need I have to re-evoke my childhood by means of literature and then by making a film. A need to understand and have others understand the importance of issues like culture and writing in particular, in the sense of one of the fundamental building blocks of one’s existence.”

Although you said you did not consciously want to make a trilogy based on La gone du Chaâba and Les Diables, your protagonists are growing up...
“The children of Le Gone du Chaâba became the adolescents of Les Diables. And the story’s not over yet. My next film takes place during the Algerian war and the protagonist will be a young man about to turn 18. After being arrested by French police, beaten and tortured, the French send him to Algeria as a spy. They ask him to source out the revolutionary cells of the FNL movement (Algerian National Liberation Movement). As you can see I am growing up too. Perhaps my fourth film will be about adults.”

Why do you like making films about Arab children and immigrants?
“It’s a re-evocation of my childhood. My father died when I was very small, just 6, and was still in Algeria. After his death we moved around a lot before returning to France. I was a “pied-noir” (an Algerian-born Frenchman) and lived in a small town near Marseille. All my friends were Algerian. I have a lot in common with the Arab world.”

Le gone du Chaâba and Les diables are about children or adolescents who experience difficulty integrating with society. Omar is torn between his family and the dream of returning to Algeria and the desire to become more French than the French themselves. Left entirely to themselves, the two adolescent “devils” substitute the real world with their personal version of it. What do you think is the reason for their social and personal disorientation?
“Without any doubt, racism is at the root of all this. If you talk about immigrants in France you are referring to Arabs and when you talk about Arabs you mean Algerians. Racism runs through all of this. I am convinced that the main reason why our young people are disoriented is that they are not thought of as people who should be nurtured and brought up properly by rather as consumers. It is a paradox that in a society in which unemployment is constantly growing and people are forced to grow up with an unemployed father, our young people are faced with ever-higher financial expectations. Goods like trainers or a jacket have become indispensible and that means that they need more and more money and must be prepared to do any job to get it.”

So there’s no easy way out?
“I believe that culture, words, expression is the solution. That implies an analysis and therefore a desire to answer one’s questions and make choices for yourself.”