Chaâbi was "invented" sometime in the 1920s by El Hadj Mohammed El Anka (1907-1978), El Anka for short. This new music (chaab means 'the people') soon became popular with the working class of the Algiers kasbah. Even today, these Algerian blues remain alive and up-to-date and - thanks to projects such as El Gusto - new audiences come into contact with this tradition tradition.
In the colonial Algeria of the 1940s and 1950s, Muslims and Jews shared love and sorrow and together they played chaâbi in the kasbah of Algiers. Chaâbi, the Algerian folk music par excellence, is an infectious mix of musical influences from North Africa, Andalusia and the Middle East. When Algeria became independent in 1962, most of the approximately 140,000 Algerian Jews together with the so-called pied-noirs went to France. Due to history, an age-old and unique cultural symbiosis came to an end.

Abdelkader Chaou: singing & mandole
Hassen Karbiche: guitar
Smail Belaïd: darboeka
Yacine Zimi: banjo
Hamid Koudri: tar
Tarek Farah: piano

En attendant les hirondelles, 2017, Algerië/Frankrijk, 113 min.
Director: Karim Moussaoui
Cast: Aure Atika, Mohamed Djouhri, Sonia Mekkiou, Mehdi Ramdani, ...
Language: Dutch subtitels
Contemporary Algeria. Three stories, three generations. Mourad, a rich businessman avoids as many problems as possible. His work, his wife and his son, those are his priorities. Aïcha wants to leave the past behind her and dedicate herself to her new life as a married wife. Accompanied by her father and a neighbour, she travels to her new family on the other side of the country. Dahman, an ambituous neurologist, is hoping for a promotion and a new chapter in his life. All three they are confronted with the consequences of a choice from the recent past. Three stories that submerge us in the soul of the contemporary Algerian society.

Co-org. De Centrale, Afrika Platform AUGent, Senegal Bantamba vzw, vzw Women Up, S-eau-S Sahel vzw, AFAM vzw (Association des Femmes Africaines Motivées) & Afrika Filmfestival Leuven