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CINECITY: Resistance - New Female Ways of Seeing from North Africa

This triple bill brings together three remarkable feminist films from North Africa: one long film from Morocco, the contemporary sci-fi adventure Animalia by Sofia Alaoui, and two short pieces from Algeria, If They Could Have by Sarah El-Hamed and Between Midnight And Six In The Morning by Nadja Makhlouf which explore the role of women in the Algerian War of Liberation 1954 – 62.

Open-ended and intriguing, all three films ask us to reflect upon women’s resistance in the face of colonial and post-colonialism oppression.

If They Could Have (15)
Sarah El-Hamed, France, Algeria, UK, 2024 (5 minutes)

Between Midnight And Six In The Morning (15)
Nadja Makhlouf, Algeria, UK, 2024 (4 minutes)

Animalia (18)
Sofia Alaoui, France, Morocco, Qatar, 2023 (90 minutes)

The event will include a roundtable discussion (pre-recorded via Zoom) with Sarah El-Hamed and Nadja Makhlouf and a DJ playing North African music in the ACCA bar.

Event times:

6.30pm - 7.15pm: Event introduction, short film screenings (If They Could Have, dir: Sarah El-Hamed & Between Midnight And Six In The Morning, dir: Nadja Makhlouf), screening of pre-recorded discussion with Nadja Makhlouf and Sarah El-Hamed

7.15pm - 7.45pm: Interval, DJ in cafe bar

7.45pm - 9.15pm: Animalia, dir: Sofia Alaoui

The films by Nadja Makhlouf and Sarah El-Hamed have been specially commissioned by the Sussex University Resistance Network and are screened as part of CINECITY Festival to mark the seventieth anniversary of the Algerian War of Liberation.

Curated by Martin Evans, Professor of Modern History, University of Sussex.