Qatar Film Days
The Qatar Film Days platform will host an online screening of the final film of the program, the drama Papicha, directed by the French-Algerian director with Russian roots Mounia Meddour. The movie is available to view from February 22nd to March 8th.
The main character of Papicha is the Algerian student Najma. This role is played by Lyna Khoudri, the star of Wes Anderson's new film The French Dispatch. Nejma wants to become a fashion designer, but this is during the backdrop of the 1990s, the "black decade" in the history of Algeria. A civil war is raging in the country, Islamic fundamentalists disrupt lectures at universities and hunt women without hijabs. Together with her friends, Nejma sneaks into nightclubs, meets guys, and tailors bold haik dresses (traditional Maghreb clothing) for her first show. The plot of the film is partly autobiographical: director Mounia Meddour was born in Moscow, grew up in Algeria, and in the 1990s, as a student, faced the same intolerance. The film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019 and received two French Cesars Film Awards.
In addition, the platform presented an online discussion about the film with the participation of Alena Doletskaya and the author of the telegram channel “Good Morning, Karl!” Katya Fedorova.
Read more on the website.
