On Tuesday 4 June, The Frontline Club hosted a screening of El Gusto. Despite a 6-hour flight delay and a broken ankle, director Safinez Bousbia made it up to the Frontline Club just in time for a lively Q&A. The film follows Bousbia on her journey to reunite a group of around 30 Jewish and Muslim Chaabi musicians, separated by the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962).

Director Safinez Bousbia

Chaabi, or ‘the people’s music’, is a musical genre that transcended class, religion and ethnicity. It grew out of the Algerian casbah and is a mix of Berber, Andalusian and religious music.  The Jewish musicians mostly fled Algeria in the wake of the Algerian War and the remaining Muslim musicians were forced out of the deteriorating casbah, eventually being relocated to different areas. After they were reunited in 2006, El Gusto began performing together again. They continue to tour, worldwide, and are due to start recording their third album this year.

Bousbia had initially only planned to arrange for the musicians to play together again one more time; a process which took around three years. After meeting them she became fascinated by what they had gone though and realised that their stories could become a great film. As she could not find any producer who wanted to take on the project, she concluded she would have to make a film herself. As a trained architect turned filmmaker she also became the manager of the El Gusto Orchestra of Algiers in the process.

The music is a very powerful backdrop to the story, especially after understanding more about its history and the experiences of the musicians. Bousbia described how she became involved with writing some of the music for the first El Gusto album:

“It was very different with this music, because they don’t write it – they memorise it, which is exceptional. Because if you arrange a whole a concert, it’s like 15 songs…and I was so impressed that they remember everything”.

As pointed out by an audience member, there are no women in El Gusto. Bousbia explained that Chaabi music was established in 1920s Algeria, very much as an underground movement.  As a result, the only women who were involved with this scene were dancers or prostitutes and the music was played in places where women did not want to be seen. She went on to say that later on, in the 1940s, as Chaabi music became more popular and mainstream, women established their own similar style of music.

When asked about the future of El Gusto and Chaabi music in Algeria, Bousbia replied that she hopes the younger generation will continue to play and tour. The original El Gusto members are all over the age of 70 – with the eldest being 104 years old – and tire easily. There are also financial limitations to the group’s activities. As a result, a younger generation is slowly introduced. Their enthusiasm is encouraging, but Bousbia feels that they will need further encouragement to become more positively involved with Chaabi music. She is also concerned with the limits placed on the growth of the music scene in Algeria:

“I think that the best thing you can offer musicians is the diversity and interactions with different cultures and different musics, and I think that’s what Algerian artists miss the most”.

She went on to explain that the current political situation in Algeria means that the musicians are not able to travel much. The government also controls the international visitors, which is affecting the development of art as it is essential for artists to be ‘confronted with what’s happening “out there”‘. Although the film was received extremely well by the people of Algeria, the El Gusto Orchestra has not received official permission to perform in Algeria yet. Bousbia also encountered several challenges with the authorities over gaining permission to film the documentary.

The El Gusto Orchestra of Algiers at the Barbican 3 June 2013. Credit: Wotienke Vermeer

Since its release El Gusto has been shown in film festivals all over the world, with the next screening in Egypt on Thursday 6 June. Safinez Bousbia will continue to accompany El Gusto and help them to prepare their third album, before starting work on her next film. Up to date information on upcoming screenings and concerts can be found on the official website of both the film and the band.

Filmmaker Safinez Bousbia describes El Gusto as “the story of a group of musicians – Jews and Muslims – torn apart by history and brought together today by music”. In reality it took more than music alone to bring these musicians back together; rather the director’s own extraordinary efforts over a two year period to hunt down and reunite a group of friends separated for 50 years.

The story of El Gusto begins in the casbah of Algiers in 2003, with a chance encounter between a young architect holidaying in the country of her birth and an 83-year-old mirror vendor and former musician, who had lost his band members during the Algerian War of Independence. At that time, Bousbia had little inclination towards filmmaking – “At the beginning, I just proposed to help him find his friends.” It was only midway through the search for Mohamed Ferkioui’s friends, as the number of remarkable sub-stories began to increase, that the necessity to document their journey became apparent.

“Once I found the musicians, I heard they had amazing stories to tell. Then I thought it was worth a film. I didn’t think I’d be the one doing it, because I was an architect at the time! I did not have a clue as to how films were made.”

In many ways the story of Safinez Bousbia is almost as intriguing as those of her musicians.

Born in Algeria, raised in Switzerland and educated at Oxford and Dublin, her transition over the course of the project from architect to investigator, band manager, film producer and director, is an indication of her extraordinary versatility. Her journey is made all the more remarkable when considered alongside battles against near-bankruptcy and cancer. These threatened to derail not only her life but also the band, the film project and the livelihoods of the men whom she had reunited.

There is certainly gratitude among her musicians for the transformation in their lives. Ferkioui describes the moment he first met Bousbia as like a “beautiful angel” who had been “sent from God”. Rachid Berkani, the band’s 75-year-old lutist rejoices: “Look at us at our age – traveling, eating great meals, staying in three- and four-star hotels, getting paid.”

Bousbia’s motivation for creating El Gusto remains clear: “Whenever we talk about the Algerian War of Independence, it’s always versions told by either soldiers or victims. It’s never just by simple people, simple musicians, who maybe never gave a damn about the war. They just wanted to play music and have fun and be friends.”

“The War of Independence was literally something you couldn’t avoid. You could not talk about their lives without talking about that war. It was the thing that made their lives pause; the reason that their friendships were torn apart, their music stopped. Their life completely took another turn.

“Their lives were stuck in the past, their music was lost, they deserved to be reunited and have their stories told. I decided to go for it.”

On Tuesday 4 June, El Gusto will be screened at the Frontline Club followed by a Q&A with director Safinez Bousbia.

Chaabi music, a beautiful rhythmic cocktail uniting Muslim and Jewish traditions, was the heart and soul of cosmopolitan Algiers until the War of Independence began in 1954. By then, the two communities were no longer allowed to work together, the music stopped and friendships were forced apart.

On a visit to Algiers, Irish – Algerian director Safinez Bousbia met a craftsman who once played with the El Gusto Orchestra. After hearing his spirited story she decided to track down every surviving member. Half a century after conflict tore the musicians apart in a war highlighting differences rather than similarities, they got together again for an extraordinary concert.

In El Gusto Bousbia documents the music made by Muslim and Jewish communities before and after the Algerian revolution. The film explores the memories of their youth, the hopes they had for a musical future and tells the story of a changed city. Portraying independent thinkers and witnesses of contemporary French-Algerian history, illustrating that the universality of music can transcend difference and prejudice.

Directed by Safinez Bousbia
Duration: 88′
Year: 2011