''Roma wa la n'toura'' (English: ''Rome Rather Than You''; French: ''Rome plutôt que vous'') is a 2006 Algerian-French-German drama film directed by

Tariq Teguia Tariq Teguia (born 1966) is an Algerian film director, screenwriter and producer. He studied visual arts and philosophy in Paris. He was an arts history teacher and a photographer, before filming some well-regarded shorts in the 1990s and a 2003 d ...

, starring Samira Kaddour and Rachid Amrani as two young people who seek to leave Algeria and the

Algerian Civil War The Algerian Civil War ( ar, rtl=yes, الْحَرْبُ الْأَهْلِيَّةُ الجَزَائِرِيَّةُ, al-Ḥarb al-ʾAhlīyah al-Jazāʾirīyah) was a civil war in Algeria fought between the Algerian government and various Is ...

behind for a brighter future. This is Teguia's feature film directorial debut. (He had previously made a few shorts and a 2002 documentary.) The film won the Special Jury Award at the 2007 Fribourg International Film Festival.

Plot

Twenty-year-old Kamel and his friend, twenty-three-year-old Zina, search Algiers for human trafficker Bosco to obtain forged passports so they can leave the country for Rome.

Reception

'' Variety'' magazine critic Robert Koehler praised "Tariq Teguia’s highly accomplished debut ... Although the final moments are foreseeable, both the getting there and the immediate aftermath show Teguia to be a director of major promise". Koehler also approved of the "naturalistic, easygoing perfs erformances of Kaddoui and Amrani. In ''

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York ...

'', however, Eric Henderson considered the film to be "arrogantly conceived, pretentiously executed, and petulantly protracted".

Cast

* Samira Kaddour as Zina * Rachid Amrani as Kamel * Ahmed Benaissa as The policeman * Kader Affak as Malek * Lali Maloufi as Merzak * Moustapha Benchaïb as Mahmoud * Khaddra Boudedhane as Zina's mother * Rabbie Azzabi as Young man in sportswear * Fethi Ghares as Young man in working overalls

References

External links

* * Algerian drama films 2006 directorial debut films 2006 films French drama films Films set in Algeria Films set in Algiers 2000s French films {{Algeria-film-stub