The Women

Ahmed Lallem

IndieLisboa 2021 •

Algeria, France, Documentary, 1966, 22′

Four years after Algeria’s independence, Ahmed Lallem provides a stage for high school girls, from the first to the last year, to talk about their lives and the future of their country. Sarah Maldoror is an assistant director for this film.

Director's Bio

One of the closest filmmakers to the Algerian FLN in its early years and the liberation movement of the country, born in Setif in 1940. He worked as a war reporter on the border, with training in Yugoslavian television in Belgrade, and filmmaking studies in Poland (Loz) and France (Paris). Author of numerous short films about revolutionary society, as well as the feature film Zone interdite-Al-faiza (1974), in which he reconstructs what Algeria is through the use of archive footage. His film Elles (1966) captures the hopes of a group of young women following Algerian independence. Three decades later, he shot Algeria, 30 years later (1995), in which he finds these women long afterward, and when disenchantment towards the revolution becomes inevitable. Lallem would go on to be one of the soundest critics of the country's Islamization.