Set during the darkest days of Algeria’s fight against Islamic fundamentalism, Rachida tells the tale of a vivacious young schoolteacher. When she refuses to plant a bomb in her school, she is shot point-blank by a gang of fundamentalists. Miraculously surviving, she retreats with her divorced mother to a small village. Once there, she resumes teaching and befriends one of her young students, unaware that the girl’s father is a terrorist. A powerful portrayal of a country torn apart by violence and archaic stigmas, with Rachida heart-breakingly summing up her plight, ‘I am in exile in my own country.’

Algeria 2002/Dir Yamina Bachir-Chouikh.
With Ibtissem Djouadi, Bahia Rachedi.
97 mins.