Algeria
My Dad’s A Farmer is a documentary that tells the personal story of director and producer El Kheyer Zidani’s parents. It lies between the past and present. Zidani’s childhood was mixed with fear and psychological distress due to the terrorism and beheadings that were omnipresent during the 90s and could have created a broken human being and religious extremist.
Against this backdrop, My Dad’s A Farmer tells the story of the mother who works as a dressmaker in the family home while the father works in agriculture in another city far from the family. For this reason, El Kheyer Zidani’s parents became a couple that lived separated from each other and would only be able to meet once per month, despite sharing a 36-year-long loving marriage.
El Kheyer Zidani is an Algerian director, producer, and founding owner of the production company Z&K Production. He directed and produced several short films, such as Amezgun Amaziy, Protest Camp, Nice Very Nice, Human and The Last Station. He is currently working on his first feature documentary Deadly Business that is in production stage and My Dad’s a Farmer that is in development stage.
Zidani has participated in several workshops in directing and film production in Algeria and abroad. His films were also screened in many international festivals, such as the Arab Film Festival of Rotterdam in 2010, the AegeanDocs International Documentary Film Festival in Greece in 2014 and 2018, the Festival International du Cinéma Méditerranéen de Montpellier in 2018, the Luxor African Film Festival in 2018, and the African film festival Vues d’Afrique in Montréal in 2019.
Zidani was nominated for an African Movie Academy Award in 2018 and is the recipient of numerous accolades, including the Jury Award at the 2018 Luxor African Film Festival, and the Jury Award at the 2019 AegeanDocs International Documentary Film Festival.
