Writing

Mouny Berrah

Biography

Mouny Berrah born Mouny Laâzib, in 1949 in Algiers in Algeria within a family originally from Beni Yenni in Kabylia, is an Algerian sociologist and critic for the magazine Les 2 Écrans in particular, on television in Télé Ciné Club. She has published several works on the cinema of the Maghreb and the Arab world. Her brilliant studies of sociology in Paris where she had followed, among others, the courses of Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, and her great general knowledge, allowed Mouny Berrah to develop a spirit of precise analysis of the arts and always with a sensitive look and fluid and pleasant writing. In the mid-1970s, in France and Algeria in the wake of the world-renowned Algerian Cinematheque, Mouny Berrah was close to cinema circles, in Algeria and elsewhere, rubbing shoulders with directors, technicians and actors, his points of view on the films were already noticed. She regularly collaborated with the magazine Ciném Action published in Paris which then highlighted the filmographies of what was called the Third World, notably in the writing of the special edition “The Algerian War on the Screen” ( No. 85, 1997). His writings can be found in other specialized magazines and newspapers around the world, including Monde Diplomatique, etc. In Algeria, his career was established with the magazine Les 2 Écrans, an Algerian television publication which even produced feature-length cinema films, which was then new in the world. Directed by Abdou B. and moderated by Mouny Berrah, the review, launched in March 1978, continued until the mid-1980s. It produced numerous film reviews and analyzes which accompanied a certain revival of Algerian cinema . To date, it is the only relatively long-lasting experience (8 years) of a specialized art magazine in Algeria. We then find Mouny Berrah in the cultural sections of Révolution Africaine and Algérie-Actualités in other disciplines. Respected by filmmakers, she did not refuse to respond amicably to their requests for advice, generally with observations on their scripts. She appears as a co-writer (with Rachid Boudjedra and director Farouk Beloufa) in the credits of the film "Nahla" (1979) and is recognized as an influence in other feature films. In 2015 on the Internet, the presenter of Télé Ciné Club Ahmed Bedjaoui, wrote: “Mouny Berrah was undoubtedly the most gifted literary and cinematographic critic of our generation”. Having left for Washington, accompanying her husband, an executive in a large international company, she continued to collaborate with the radio and the newspaper Soir d'Algérie. She was also part of the team at the New York Arab Film Festival. She died in 2000 following a heart attack in Washington, leaving her husband, Noureddine, and their two children, as well as the Algerian cultural world of which she was the resplendent figure.