Fatima Sissani

Your untangled hair hides a 7 year war. Cross-look of three women engaged alongside the FLN on colonization and the Algerian war of independence. They will know the clandestine, the prison, the torture, the psychiatric hospital. It is at the twilight of their lives that they choose to testify, after decades of silence. With clarity and modesty, they tell the story of colonial Algeria, segregation, racism, anti-Semitism, prison, torture, solidarity, freedom and also the nature that invigorates, soothing landscapes, music and poetry that allow the breakaway .

The Kabyle people define themselves first and foremost through the spoken word. Every gesture, every moment of their daily lives can give rise to a language of verse, metaphors, and proverbs. After all, isn't it said that in the mountain foothills they call home, verbal dueling was a common pastime? It is a reality difficult to visualize when one looks at the immigrant society where these men and women—often illiterate—are relegated solely to the roles of manual laborers and housewives; one can hardly imagine the eloquent orators they become when they return to their native tongue.