The film Saphir, plays out a developing dialogue between the sea - as site of both connection and separation - the two protagonists and the colonial hotel Es Safir.
It portrays a shipping port as a real-life theatre in and around the centre of Algiers: a site where the realities and dreams of people's lives are played out.
There is a dynamic set up between the notions of arrival and departure, stasis and transition, entrapment and escape, belonging and not belonging.
Confronting the contemporary life of the city with an older and more ambivalent legacy, Saphir presents a portrait of Algiers in a transitional moment, the local character gradually becoming absorbed into the current of increasing globalisation. S.Z.
Co-commisioned by the Photographer's Gallery and Film and Video Umbrella, London
Saphir (extract)
