On December 12th Salim Aggar was appointed director of the Algerian cinematheque by the Minister of Culture Azzedine Mihoubi. A journalist, film critic and film director, Aggar takes over from Lyes Semian.
The Minister of Culture reminded Algerians of the film library’s central purpose: to develop digital, to train technicians and to organise meetings between film professionals. He also said that “his decision to appoint Salim Aggar is not fortuitous – he is one of the eminent players on the film scene, he has contributed a huge amount, working hard to preserve Algeria’s heritage, given his talent and his experience in the field of cinema.”
Aggar worked for 15 years in the Algerian press as a journalist. He had a parallel career as a director, starting in 1989 when he was only 21 years old. He directed many short films before starting to write feature-length documentaries. His film Paroles d’un prisonnier français de l’ALN received the Mediterranean Memory Award at the 2009 PriMed.
As well as directing films, he also promotes other peoples’ work, in 2009 creating the first web-site for Algerian cinema, Anouslesecrans.com. He also created Les Journées Cinématographiques d’Alger, a film festival in Algiers offering a wide panorama of recent films to the Algerian public.
About his new job at the Cinematheque Salim Aggar commented that he would “persevere and work seriously to fulfil this project.”
Sources: http://dia-algerie.com, http://www.aps.dz
