Langue de Zahra
Fatima Sissani
2011 - 93 min - Digital vidéo - Couleur - France

The Kabyls exist primarily through speech. Each gesture, each instant of their daily life flows into a verse, a metaphor, a proverb… After all, in the mountainous fortress that they’re patrons of, oratory prowess is the most prevalent activity.
This is a reality that one cannot fully apprehend in the society of immigration when confronted with these men and women – often illiterate – relegated to the borders as labourers or household helps. It is hard to imagine the eloquent orators that they become when they switch back to their mother tongue.
I sensed this reality and measured its intensity and calibre by filming my mother, her history and her present.
I watched, fascinated, this woman who held on unshakeably to her mother tongue. A woman who reveals an orality that has been transmitted from generation to generation. A language that brings together poetry and eloquence to talk about bucolic childhood, exile or poverty… This language is the ultimate intelligence that most Kabyls carry with them… A language with which they can construct an “elsewhere” for themselves that isn’t just exile.