Charles Cohen, of the newly minted Cohen Media Group, introduced his distribution company and their inaugural film, the Algerian entry into the Oscars race, “Outside the Law,” at a luncheon at The Four Seasons last week. Of the 65 films Charles Cohen put forward by their countries as contenders for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award, this epic drama of occupation and resistance through the story of a family of brothers is on many a short list.

Paris-based writer/ director Rachid Bouchareb is familiar to American audiences through his previous film, “Indigenes” (or Days of Glory), nominated for the Foreign Film Oscar in 2006; before that, his “Poussieres de vie” had been a 1995 nominee. His films tend to limn the same themes: colonialism, immigration, occupation, and multi-racial, multi-cultural issues that resonate particularly in North Africa and the Middle East. “Outside the Law,” at least chronologically, picks up where “Indigenes” leaves off, in 1945.
Filmmaker Paul Morrissey, upon hearing an outline of “Outside the Law,” how a family was expelled from their ancestral home in Algeria and ended up in France with three sons each in his way participating in the movement for Algerian independence, declared he would like to see a comedy from this director. Sure enough, the Paris-born Algerian Rachid Bouchareb told me he will now stay in Los Angeles to finish a script with Larry Gross, a comedy to star Queen Latifa and Jamel Debbouze, the brother Said who becomes a boxing impresario in “Outside the Law. “

And what does he think about the possibility of again being nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, and maybe winning? Scorcese was nominated seven times before he won, smiled Rachid Bouchareb. This would make only three for me.

Regina Weinreich

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