Special Guest Sofia Djama Attending April 13 + April 14
In postwar Algiers, Amal and Samir are a middle-aged couple hoping to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary. Drifting through their day, they eventually find themselves at a restaurant. Here, they confront their differences and disillusionment, threaded with the unsettled atmosphere of postwar society. Outside, their teenaged son Fahim and his friends, Feriel and Reda, spend their day on the streets of Algiers. They too reveal ideological differences among them, their banter soon leading to the revelation of hidden wounds left by the war that shaped their current world. While the scenes shared between Amal and Samir echo adult fatigue, Fahim and his gang wear their youth as if a target on their backs.
Sofia Djama’s debut feature employs this multi-layered narrative to craft a stirring drama that illuminates the generational states of unrest left in the wake of the Algerian Civil War.
Director Biography
Sofia Djama was born in Algiers. Her feature-film debut, The Blessed, premiered in 2017 and has garnered several awards such as the Brian Award at the Venice Film Festival, a title bestowed upon films that "best champions human rights, democracy, pluralism and freedom of thought.”
Press
"A haunting portrait of Algerians coping with the aftereffects of war." - Hollywood Reporter
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