Amazigh Indigenous Cinema, discussion and screening of Taazrit
Habiba Boumlik and Lucy McNair in conversation with Madeleine Dobie
Lucy McNair and Habiba Boumlik discuss their book, An Introduction to North African Indigenous Film (2025), with a screening of Taazrit (Arinas Kaouther Dernouni, 2024, 35 min.).
Amazigh Cinema: Introduction to North African Indigenous Film is a collection of essays by an international group of experts on North African Indigenous expression and media, which offers the first English-language analysis of Amazigh cinema for North American and global readers, taking note of a growing archive of under-examined Amazigh-related films. The book contrasts Amazigh production with other national and global cinemas and evaluates the reception of what contributors alternately call “Amazigh-Speaking Cinema” or “Amazigh cinematographic space.” Examining how cinematic art plays a role in preserving Amazigh language and shaping Amazigh identity or Amazighity, including gender identity, the essay collection also shows how these films give witness to a long history of repression and exclusion as well as creative resiliency.
Taazrit, (directed by Arinas Kaouther Dernouni, 2024, 35 min., in Arabic, Chaoui, and French, with English subtitles) follows the daily life of Habiba, a Chaoui woman from Ghassira, a semi-desert village in the Aurès Mountains of eastern Algeria. Far from neo-orientalist stereotypes, her relationship to the land resonates as an expression of collective memory — the memory of generations of women who shaped their lives beyond official narratives and modern conceptions that reduce belonging to an act of ownership. Habiba navigates between her attachment to traditions that carry the stories of her ancestors and her desire to redefine her identity beyond imposed categories. Through her journey, she raises profound questions about freedom, belonging, and self-determination, revealing how a woman can reclaim her body, her land, and her life in the face of social constraints.
Bio
Habiba Boumlik is Professor at CUNY LaGuardia Community College and a scholar of Amazigh cinema. She teaches French and Arabic languages and literatures, as well as Middle Eastern and North African cinema. She founded the New York Forum of Amazigh Film (NYFAF) to bring visibility to the Amazigh communities and cultures in North Africa and the diaspora through cinema, and to advocate for Amazigh cinematic production and recognition.
Lucy R. McNair is a translator and Professor of English at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York. Her research focuses on North African Francophone and Amazigh literature and film, exploring themes of traumatic memory, Indigeneity and Amazighity, and the female Indigenous gaze in cinema.