Abouda and Bonnamy’s first two films refused to produce a storyline and were developed on the principle of a true cross-fertilisation of cultures, animated by the mutual fascination for the other. They are true acts of love, conceived as kaleidoscopic assemblages based on a musical paradigm. In Algérie couleurs, the colour and light of the Maghreb, of its streets and houses, are captured in a rhythmic construction, in the manner of a lively toccata. Abouda and Bonnamy, however, lay a “collage” on top of the visual dynamics, a soundtrack that contributes greatly to the sensory abundance of these films, where a quasi-permanent back-and-forth between Eastern and Western musical sounds manifests itself metaphorically. Albert Ayler’s unbridled saxophone telescopes the mesmerising voice of Om Kalsoum in Cinécité, a film entirely devoted to Paris, the cosmopolitan and multicultural city of their own history. (J.M Bouhours, 1997)
