The first Arab and African filmmaker to win the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Mohammed Lakhdar Hamina, has died at the age of 95, his family announced on Friday.
Hamina earned international acclaim in 1975 for his powerful historical drama Chronicle of the Years of Fire, which portrayed Algeria’s fight for independence from French colonial rule.
The film, structured in six chapters covering the years 1939 to 1954, told the story of a nation’s awakening through the lives of its people and culminated in the uprising that ignited Algeria’s liberation struggle.
His children confirmed that he passed away peacefully at his home in Algiers. At the time of his death, Hamina was the oldest living recipient of the Palme d’Or and had competed at the Cannes Film Festival four times during his career. His 1967 feature The Winds of the Aures earned him the Best First Work award at the same festival.
Born on February 26, 1930, in the mountainous Aures region of M’sila in northeastern Algeria, Hamina was raised by peasant parents from the high plains. He initially pursued agricultural studies before moving to the French coastal town of Antibes, near Cannes, where he would later meet his wife. The couple had four sons together.
Hamina’s personal history was deeply entwined with Algeria’s fight for freedom. During the war, his father was abducted, tortured, and killed by the French army. In 1958, he joined the Algerian resistance based in Tunis. It was there that he began learning the craft of filmmaking, starting with an internship on Tunisian newsreels before venturing into short films and ultimately creating works that brought Algerian stories to global audiences.
