Cascade Festival of African Films 2020: "Papicha" by Mounia Meddour (Algeria)

Cascade Festival of African Films 2020

Papicha by Mounia Meddour

(Algeria) 2019, 106 min
Featuring Women Filmmakers Week

Synopsis

Nedjma (Lyna Khoudri) is a young Algerian student living on a university campus. In the early 1990s, Algeria saw the first hours of a civil war between the state and Islamic terrorists. The "dark decade", as it will be called later, left thousands of Algerian families in bereavement. But festivities are still going on at the start of Papicha, the first feature film by the Algerian director. With her friend Wassila (Shirine Boutella), they have quietly left the city to party and to sell the creations of Nedjma, a budding stylist, to the "papichas", the nickname for "pretty young Algerian girls". It is still the time of insouciance. (Source: Falila Gbadamassi, Africine.org 

Bio
Born in Algeria, Mounia Meddour moved to France with her family at age 18. She studied journalism and audiovisual production in France, at both the CEFP and Femis. She directed her first documentary Particules élémentaires  in 2007 and in 2009, La Cuisine en héritage. In 2011, she made her first short fiction film Edwige.