The glow of a cigarette in the dark leads into the echoing arcades of an Algerian slaughterhouse. Gloomy noises accompany the story glazed in crimson and cold metal: two generations meet. What Ali Bey, ed raised by a violent civil war, recipe and a witness of the Arab Spring, Youcef, have in common are desolation and dead ends. Particularly the younger, Youcef, feels his stuck standing in a roundabout that leads either to drugs, crime or suicide. Many friends have crossed the Mediterranean to continental Europe.

Days in the slaughterhouse remind of the bloodsheds of past and present. Hassen Ferhan’s film paints images of an environment analogous to Youcef’s bleak reality. The hanging carcasses are only the opening curtain to a play that throws its characters amidst dreary hallways and freshly wounded corpses. To illustrate everything, there are grotesque compositions of the daily life in slaughterhouse where death is purely business. Stunningly visual, Roundabout in My Head may very well be the most beautiful film ever made in a slaughterhouse.

Arttu Manninen / Translation: Tapio Reinekoski

Language: Arabic
Subtitles: English

• Director: Hassen Ferhani
• Country: France, Algeria, Lebanon, Qatar
• Year: 2015
• Length: 100 min
• Age limit: S
• Format: DCP
• Cinematography: Hassen Ferhani
• Editing: Hassen Ferhani, Narimane Mari, Corentin Doucet, Myriam Ayçaguer
• Audio: Djamel Kerkar, Antoine Morin
• Production: Narimane Mari/Allers Retours Films

Showtimes:

• Cinema Artis hall 2: Friday 29.01 - 20:00