Assia Djebar: Algerian Images-son in Experimental Documentaries

This case study looks at French-Algerian author Assia Djebar, who made two little-known films. This chapter is an exploration of the limited but highly complex and challenging work of an important pioneering North African woman. Algeria’s particularly complex historical and political experience of independence from France, its relationship with Islam and its war-torn historical reality, have determined the lacunae in creative production. As some of the only films to ever have been made by an Algerian woman, La Nouba (1978) and La Zerda (1982) are masterpieces of feminist and anti-colonialist filmmaking. La Nouba is an explicitly feminist work, a documentary interlaced with experimental, symbolic fragments referring to international trends in feminist filmmaking in the seventies. As scholars of Algerian cinema have stated, cinema in the country is steeped in amnesia, consisting of fictional efforts that look away from reality. This chapter frames Djebar’s films differently from previous readings, and draws more challenging conclusions with regard to her transnational identity and her approach to women. More than feminist films, they reveal the filmmaker’s struggle with her own diasporic identity.