Le Magma (Magma)
Mia Bendrimia | France, Algeria, Qatar | 2026 | French & Arabic with English subtitles | 88m
Scottish Premiere
Spanning Algeria and France, Magma follows Mia as she sets out to understand how colonialism tore her family apart. The deeper she digs, the more contradictions she finds, with each revelation raising new questions rather than settling old ones. What begins as an investigation into family taboos opens out into something far more personal and complex, as buried histories collide with the life she's living now.
The feature will be screened alongside short film:
Sara & Fatima
Romy Boutin St-Pierre, Nada Cheddadi, Karima Zouhair | Canada | 2026 | Darija & French with English subtitles | 13m
Scottish Premiere
Two women meet at a bus stop in Morocco, on an almost deserted highway. One is veiled, the other is not. They are smitten at first sight and judge each other. Time passes by, the bus doesn't arrive. They drop their masks to reveal their inner struggles and unite in the face of the aggression hanging over them.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Magma director Mia Bendrimia, alongside producers Kira Simon-Kennedy and Imane Lamime.
Mia Bendrimia
Mia Bendrimia is a French-Algerian filmmaker and producer, and the founder of Nazar Films, a production company dedicated to stories from the Mediterranean worlds. After studying International Relations and diplomacy, Bendrimia established herself in Cairo, Egypt where she worked as a Creative Producer, getting familiar with the SWANA cinema landscapes. Her debut feature documentary, MAGMA, premiered at Sheffield DocFest, where it won the Grand Jury Award in the International First Feature Competition. She is currently developing her next film, Colonization Is Not a Love Story.
Kira Simon-Kennedy
Kira Simon-Kennedy is an Academy Award nominated documentary film producer (Ascension), currently producing several other features, including Mia Bendrimia's Magma & AX Mina's Rubbish. She is a volunteer member of La Clef, a collectivey-run movie theater in Paris and she also advises and builds tools for justice-oriented civic technology nonprofits like Data for Good.
Imane Lamime
Imane is a French-Moroccan film curator and producer based between London and Paris with a background in film distribution and programming. She recently worked on LFF, SXSW London and the Marrakech International Film Festival. She's a producer on Mia Bendrimia's debut feature MAGMA, which premiered at Sheffield DocFest and won the Grand Jury Award in the International First Feature Competition.
She is also the founder of Fhamtini, a London-based film festival celebrating North African cinema. Fhamtini showcases the broad range of the films emerging in the Maghreb region and aims to promote the diversity of the Arab culture and diaspora experience. In the last 3 years, Fhamtini premiered diverse international films such as THE BLUE CAFTAN, BYE BYE TIBERIAS and BOUCHRA in UK cinemas.