Past Film/Video | Documentaries

Letter to My Sister

(Lettre à ma soeur, Habiba Djahnine, 2006, Algeria)

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Two women having a conversation on a high altitude with clouds behind in the scene.
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Mar 19, 2021–Mar 26, 2021

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In Letter to My Sister, filmmaker Habiba Djahnine returns to the North Algerian city of Tizi Ouzou to piece together the legacy of her assassinated sister’s activism.

As written for Arab Film Festival Berlin: “Nabila Djahnine was the chairwoman of the women’s organization Thighri N’tmettouth (Women’s Outcry) in the indigenous Kabylian city of Tizi-Ouzou, consistently and vehemently criticizing the structural, social, and patriarchal violence” experienced by Algerian women there. Her outspoken activism attracted the wrong kind of attention, and in 1995, Nabila was assassinated amid Algeria’s decade-long civil war now known as The Black Decade.

In this moving documentary, Habiba Djahnine blends interviews with village residents who remember Nabila, footage of sprawling Algerian landscapes, and her own powerful voiceover in the form of a letter written to her sister years after her death. The result is a poetic, personal film that speaks to the ripple effects of resistance even on an individual scale. In Arabic, Kabyle, and French with English subtitles. (68 mins., video)

Two women having a conversation on a high altitude with clouds behind in the scene.

Image courtesy of the filmmaker

Four elderly women singing together.

Image courtesy of the filmmaker

Two women sharing a book out in the fields.

Image courtesy of the filmmaker

A girl drinking water facing the sun.

Image courtesy of the filmmaker

Tag(s)

Organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts and curated by Ohio State History of Art graduate student Dareen Hussein and Film/Video Curatorial Assistant Layla Muchnik-Benali.

This series was made possible with support from the Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme Fellowship.

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Past Film/Video

Letter to My Sister

Mar 19, 2021–Mar 26, 2021
Thursday's Hours 10AM–8PM

STREAMS ON THIS PAGE
Free for all audiences

 

We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals, including individuals with disabilities, to engage fully. If you have questions about accessibility or require an accommodation such as captioning or ASL interpretation to participate in this event, please contact Accessibility Manager Helyn Marshall at accessibility@wexarts.org or (614) 688–3890. Requests made by two weeks in advance will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the Wexner Center for the Arts will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.

Become a Member