Friday, February 20, 2009

YM Movie Today: Rachida

Today at 1:30 pm in the library Media Room, Reinhardt's Year of the Mediterranean program will be showing the movie Rachida.

Rachida is a 2003 French film set in 1990s Algiers during a time of heavy terrorist activity. Rachida is a teacher who is shot by terrorists when she refuses to take a bomb to her school. She is sent to another village to recuperate where she won't be recognized by the terrorist group.

At first she is traumatized and refuses to leave her house until her mother convinces her that she would be less conspicuous if she kept a normal routine like other women in the village. She and her mother soon learn that they are not safe from terrorism even here, as the other women in the village tell them how their lives have been affected by the terrorist activities. They soon see for themselves how many lives terrorism shatters, from women who have been brutalized by terrorists and then cast out of society to the terrorists' own children who have been abandoned.

Rachida has won acclaim around the world. It has been awarded both the audience award and the Golden Unicorn for Best Feature Film at the 2002 Amiens International Film Festival, the 2002 Golden Bayard award for Best Film at the Namur International Festival of French-Speaking Film, the Satyajit Ray Award at the 2002 London Film Festival and the Cinema of the South Award at the Marrakech International Film Festival.

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