Djouhra Abouda (also known as Djura) is a film director, singer and songwriter born in Algeria in 1949. Arrived in France at the age of five, she obtained the baccalaureate of philosophy. Being attracted by theater and cinema, she envisages to make an artistic career but her father was against it. She ran away and broke with her family and was initiated into experimental cinema at the Centre Universitaire in Vincennes. There she directed three films with Alain Bonnamy: Algérie Couleurs (1972), Cinécités (1974) and Ali au Pays des Merveilles (1976), a hard-hitting film with a certain impact. At the end of the 70s, she founded the music group Djurdjura, a fusion between modern music (folk, pop rock) and traditional Kabylic melodies and rhythms. Her autobiographical book Le Voile du silence, in which she recounts her struggle to exist as a woman, has sold more than 200.000 copies.
Mahdieh Fahimi was born in Belgium but grew up in Iran. As a young adult, she returned to Belgium and obtained a master's degree in visual arts from LUCA School of Arts in Ghent in 2018. Since then, she has been actively writing and reflecting on film, mainly but certainly not limited to films and creators from the SWANA region.
Am I the only one who is like me? This is a question characteristic of Saddie Choua’s life and work. It problematizes the position of the solitary I that is also never disconnected from the other. The power order that conditions the solitary “I”, is another central subject. Where does this otherness sit in the hierarchy of power? Where is her oppression and exploitation concealed or exoticed? Saddie Choua questions the relationship between maker and image and asks us to think about how we consume images and dialogues about the other and how they affect our self-image and historical consciousness.
Saddie Choua is a doctoral researcher at RITCS filmschool in Brussels and a lecturer at Sint Lucas school of arts Antwerp and RITCS. She is part of the artist collective ROBIN.
Kenza Lansari is studente Radio aan het RITCS. Ze heeft jarenlang gedanst, en heeft een passie voor performance, experimentele geluidskunst en radio.
