Art Matters / Moving Images: Carte Blanche to Zineb Sedira with Róisín Tapponi

On the occasion of her solo show Dreams Have No Titles at Whitechapel Gallery in London, supported by Fluxus Art Projects, artist Zineb Sedira is invited to Ciné Lumière for a Carte blanche to Algerian cinema. She will present The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting, a 1983 avant-garde experimental documentary film directed by Assia Djebar.

Based on archival photographs and film footage shot between 1912 and 1942 in the colonial Maghreb, this experimental film essay is a historical account that gives life to the forgotten ceremonies and repressed lifestyles of indigenous Algerians. The film was one of two documentary films directed by Djebar during her decade-long hiatus from writing, in collaboration with poet Malek Alloula and Moroccan composer Ahmed Essyad. It won the prize for Best Historical Film at the 1983 Berlin International Film Festival.