''La Zerda ou les chants de l'oubli'' (English: ''The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting'') is a 1979 avant-garde experimental

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

directed by

Assia Djebar Fatima-Zohra Imalayen (30 June 1936 – 6 February 2015), known by her pen name Assia Djebar ( ar, آسيا جبار), was an Algerian novelist, translator and filmmaker. Most of her works deal with obstacles faced by women, and she is noted fo ...

Synopsis

Using archival photographs and film footage shot between 1912 and 1942 in the colonial Maghreb, Djebar composes an experimental film essay in which the soundtrack reveals what the images cannot express alone. The film becomes a historical account that gives life to the forgotten ceremonies (such as the Zerda festival) and repressed lifestyles of indigenous Algerians, while simultaneously questioning the influence of their colonial context on the representations they portray.

Production

The film was directed by

, and experimental in style. The film was one of two documentary films directed by Djebar during her decade-long hiatus from writing, in collaboration with poet

Malek Alloula Malek Alloula (1937–2015) was an Algerian poet, writer, editor, and literary critic. He is chiefly notable for his poetry and essays on philosophy. He wrote several books, including ''Le Harem Colonial'' in 1981, translated into English as '' ...

and Moroccan composer Ahmed Essyad.

Accolades

The film won the prize for Best Historical Film at the 1983 Berlin International Film Festival.

Existing copy

The original reels have disappeared, with the only remaining copy restored and digitised by the in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 0135068 1980s Arabic-language films 1980s French-language films 1982 multilingual films