Ramzy Bensaadi, born in 1981, lives in Algeria, Oran precisely, like to photograph whenever he got some free time, started picturing Algeria when back home in early 2012, before that he used to work as a cabin crew for an airline in the middle east where he used to send pictures of his trips to his family back home and try to document for them and show what he saw from other cultures and at the same time when he was looking for images of his country there were only cliches he knew from his childhood or others made by some great foreign photographers who came on assignments. Now he works as HR Manager because living from photography in Algeria is quite difficult since there’s no local market, editors. In Rural Algeria, especially western Algeria, many villages are called by the name of their founder or the man who was considered as a leader and kind of what is the mayor in the actual society, these men were well respected because of their faith, guidance, loyalty, justice and behavior. After they passed away and some of their descendants who had the same aura and respect also were buried in a place near the village. Every year in each village people come celebrate a day in their memory, some people visit their mausoleum, it’s not a religious day, it’s a kind of festival where many activities take place, horse show called fantasia, music bands playing, games for kids, sweet sellers.. and at the end of the day it’s a way to escape routine also, rural Algeria doesn’t offer much entertainments or things, many of them escaped and left their lands during what we call here the dark decade, a decade where Algeria faced a tough period of terrorism, they where those who suffered the most and had to spot these celebrations because it was considered as kind of disbelief religiously speaking.
