We Had the Day Bonsoir

Narimane Mari is a producer and director. Within her production company Centrale électrique she produces films by Hassen Ferhani and Djamel Kerkar. Her first feature film, Loubia Hamra, received the Grand Prix at CPH:Dox and the Grand Prix of the French competition at FID in 2013. Her second film Le fort des fous was selected at the Locarno IFF in 2017. On a eu la journée bonsoir received the CNAP award and the Grand Prix of the French competition at FID in 2022.

 

NOTICE OF THE SELECTION COMITEE 

How can one portray what one fears most, a dying love, a dying life? Without putting any words to them, Narimane Mari shot these precious moments she shared with her boyfriend. Modestly, gently, she breathes as much life as she can in this film about death. It’s no requiem, no mausoleum, We had the day bonsoir is an impulse, a chant, a stanza. Already with Loubia Hamra (2013), the filmmaker managed to reenact the violence of the Algerian war through the brazen gracefulness of children; here, it is the lonely foray into death that she transubstantiates with the spontaneity of an intimate camera, and the playful complicity between her and Michel Haas.

Paola Raiman