Amel is an emergency doctor working at a hospital in an Algerian coastal town during the civil war in 1990. She returns home one evening to discover her husband, a journalist, has disappeared. She suspects the involvement of an underground Islamist group, and, in desperation sets out to find him herself. Khadidja, an older nurse who was involved in the fight for her country's independence from the French when much younger, accompanies her when she sets off into the surrounding foothills. A tense, engrossing and brilliantly acted drama, Barakat! is, in the words of first time feature director Djamila Sahraoui 'a women's story that plays in a country wracked by violence', a stirring tale of female heroism that confronts the uncomfortable history of a troubled region.

France-Algeria, 2006 / Djamila Sahraoui
With Rachida Brakni, Fettouma Bouamari, Zahir Bouzrar
92 mins