Nedjma, an 18-year-old student passionate about fashion design refuses to let the tragic events of the Algerian Civil War keep her from experiencing a normal life. As the social climate becomes more conservative, she rejects the new bans set by the radicals and decides to put on a fashion show.
A small abandoned house, isolated in the Algerian countryside. Here Ouardia has buried her son Tarik, a soldier possibly killed by his own brother Ali, leader of an Islamist group. In this atmosphere, tense with pain and brittle with drought, life will little by little reassert itself. Thanks to the garden that Ouardia will bring to life by dint of courage, work, and obstinacy.
The Director Mohammed Soudani comes back to Algeria after 30 years with the photographer Michael von Graffenried to visit the Algerians he had photographed between 1991 and 2000 without them knowing it.
Nabila Djahnine, president of the feminist association Thirghri N'tmetout, died in hands of an armed group in Tizi Ouzou (Algeria) in 1995. The Islamists forced women, on pain of death, to wear the hijab or stop working. It was the first time a feminist woman paid with her life. Nabila wrote a letter to her sister Habiba in 1994. This documentary is her answer. In 2006 Habiba comes back to the place to restore her sister’s memory, her point of view, the day of her death and the political moment Algeria was going through at that time.
Algérie(s) chronicles the country's struggle for peace, stability and democracy since independence from France. The documentary combines recent and archival interviews, newsreel footage, and recently filmed footage from Algeria to trace the origins of the violence that has left as many as 200,000 dead since 1988. Algérie(s) begins with a brief historical survey of events in Algeria since independence in 1962, and moves on to focus on the democratization process set in motion after the October 1988 riots, the success of Islamist groups in elections, the subsequent cancellation of these elections by the military, and the country's descent into violence, up to the present day. The film provides an excellent overview of recent events and asks tough questions about their causes, and humanizes a conflict that was all too often reported deep inside the newspaper with little more than "score cards" of the numbers killed.
At a dangerous time in Algeria, 'Douar de Femmes' is a story of ordinary women who manage to defend themselves in extraordinary situations. The film focuses on a small village that has been attacked more often by terrorists from the surrounding mountains. While the men work, the women learn how to handle machine guns and explore the area. “Fear has armed us,” says the young woman Sabrina. But despite that fear, people get married, children come and keep watch.
Directed by Mohamed Chouikh.
