Fatima Sissani

Fatima Sissani (born 1970) is an Algerian documentary filmmaker whose work has garnered a number of prizes. She worked as a journalist for the independent Radio Zinzine and later France Culture's radio channel. She has directed four feature length documentaries that focus on themes of immigration, native Algerian culture, and revolutionary feminism.

Early life and education

Fatima Sissani was born in 1970 in the Kabylia region of Algeria and immigrated to working class suburbs of Paris, France, at the age of six. As an adult in France, Sissani went to law school and began a career in journalism. She worked as a radio journalist for Radio Zinzine, an independent radio station run by the French anarchist collective Longo Maï Association. Sissani later conducted interviews for France Culture's radio channel.

Filmography

La Langue de Zahra (2011) Sissani's first documentary, La Langue de Zahra (Zahra's Mother Tongue, 24images), portrays her mother, Zahra's, experience of migration from the Kabylia region of Algeria to France and her relationship to her home through Kabyle, a Berber language spoken by Kabyle people indigenous to Algeria. La Langue de Zahra follows Zahra through her apartment life in France as well as her reflections and conversations while in the Kabyle countryside.

Les Gracieuses (2014) Les Gracieuses (The Graces, 24Images) is an 80 minute documentary film released in 2014 is Sissani's second feature length documentary film. The film offers a portrait of six young women who grew up as children of immigrants in a low income housing complex in eastern France and have stayed in the same suburb to the present day. Quintessence Festival- Ouidah, Benin 2015 The documentary follows three women freedom fighters, or moudjahidas in Arabic, involved in the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria from 1954 to 1962. Sissani documents their experiences in the anti-colonial movement through interviews to share the roles of moudjahidas in the FLN. Résistantes primarily focuses on Eveline Safir Lavalette, raised by wealthy settlers in Algeria who took on the Algerian liberation struggle after learning and witnessing the discrimination against colonized Algerians. Women moudjahidas were largely excluded from nationalist history after Algeria gained its independence, and Sissani made the film in order to challenge the dominant, patriarchal, historical narrative. The protestors acted without watching the film, only knowing that the FLN was central to the documentary, and believing that colonial French Algerians had suffered at the hands of the FLN. Through testimonies from local residents, activists, and researchers, the documentary examines the social and spatial effects of large-scale urban renewal in the Plan d'Aou neighborhood of northern Marseille of France. The title, which translates to, "It's a beautiful postcard", underscores the disparity between the area's outward "postcard" appearance and the realities of the everyday struggles happening beneath the surface.

Style and themes

Sissani's filmography is exclusively documentary, particularly focusing on documentary portraiture. She is a self-proclaimed feminist and each of her feature length films centers women's voices and experiences. She focuses on how women relate to each other and how they experience politically charged issues such as immigration (La Langue De Zahra and Les Gracieuses), urban renewal (C'est Une Belle Carte Postale), and Algerian politics, organizing, and cultural resistance (Resistantes and La Langue de Zahra).