{"id":18281,"date":"2025-07-23T15:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T15:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/18281\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T15:40:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T15:40:07","slug":"venice-bound-algerian-horror-film-roqia-acquired-by-alpha-violet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/18281\/","title":{"rendered":"Venice-Bound Algerian Horror Film ‘Roqia’ Acquired by Alpha Violet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFrench sales outfit Alpha Violet<\/a> has acquired the rights for Algerian horror film \u201cRoqia,\u201d written and directed by Yanis Koussim<\/a>, which will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival<\/a> as part of International Critics\u2019 Week.<\/p>\n

\n\tVirginie Devesa and Keiko Funato, co-founders of Alpha Violet, said they had been struck by the film\u2019s \u201cvisceral portrayal of historical trauma through gripping mise-en-sc\u00e8ne and haunting imagery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 1993, a car crash leaves Ahmed with amnesia. He returns to his village where nothing seems familiar. His youngest child, disturbed by Ahmed\u2019s fully bandaged face, harbors a deep fear of him.<\/p>\n

\n\tEach night, mysterious visitors torment Ahmed, whispering litanies in an incomprehensible language. Who are these strange figures? And why does his so-called friend, the neighbor, make him feel so uneasy?<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the present day, an aging Raqi, a Muslim exorcist, struggles with Alzheimer\u2019s disease. His forgetfulness and erratic behavior alarm his disciple. As violence intensifies in the city and the possessed speak in an unknown tongue, the disciple begins to fear the worst.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Ahmed, in the past, dreads regaining his memory, the disciple, in the present, fears that his master\u2019s decline will unleash an ancient evil.<\/p>\n

\n\tKoussim said: \u201cI grew up during Algeria\u2019s bloody 1990s, and the trauma and fear from that time still linger beneath the surface of daily life. With \u2018Roqia,\u2019 I use horror, grounded in realism and memory, as a tool to confront that past, preserve it, and ensure it is never forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRoqia\u201d is produced by Far\u00e8s Ladjimi for Supernova Films, in co-production with 19 and Mulholland Drive Production. Jean-Marie Delorme served as the director of photography; the editors were Sarah Zaanoun and Maxime Pozzi-Garcia.<\/p>\n

\n\tKoussim has directed several short films, including \u201cKhouya,\u201d which was awarded at Locarno and Amiens, and was part of the official selection at Clermont-Ferrand. He later contributed to the documentary \u201cA Summer in Algiers: the Night,\u201d and co-wrote the screenplays of \u201cI Still Hide to Smoke\u201d by Rayhana Obermeyer, and \u201cEl Zahia,\u201d the next feature of Adila Bendimerad and Damien Ounouri.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French sales outfit Alpha Violet has acquired the rights for Algerian horror film \u201cRoqia,\u201d written and directed by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[15781,49,48,75,337,4186,15782],"class_list":["post-18281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-alpha-violet","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-venice-film-festival","tag-yanis-koussim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}