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UK PREMIERE
True Chronicles of the Blida Joinville Psychiatric Hospital in the Last Century, when Dr Frantz Fanon Was Head of the Fifth Ward between 1953 and 1956
Institute of Contemporary Arts
True Chronicles of the Blida Joinville Psychiatric Hospital in the Last Century, when Dr Frantz Fanon Was Head of the Fifth Ward between 1953 and 1956 (Chroniques fidèles survenues au siècle dernier à l’hôpital psychiatrique Blida-Joinville, au temps où le Docteur Frantz Fanon était chef de la cinquième division entre 1953 et 1956), dir. Abdenour Zahzah, Algeria/France 2024, 90 min., Arabic and French with English subtitles


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Set in 1953 at a psychiatric clinic in Blida, Algeria, and shot on location, the film follows Frantz Fanon (Alexandre Desane), a young black psychiatrist, as he is appointed head doctor. A student of Francesc Tosquelles, Fanon challenges the inhumane, racist, colonial psychiatry of the clinic and replaces them with methods that allow patients to reclaim their individual identities and sense of agency and break down established barriers between doctors and patients, and between Christians and Muslims. 

Algerian filmmaker Abdenour Zahzah’s latest work is an illuminating portrait of the lesser-known yet critical early work of a physician, renowned politician, and decolonial activist, who conceived visionary social therapy methods during his time in Algeria. Abdenour Zahzah’s cinema - sincere, non-judgmental, sober - invites the audience to follow Fanon as he grew into activism, driven but a sustained sense of care for people’s wellbeing and social justice.

The UK premiere, on Sunday 3 November, is followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Abdenour Zahzah, hosted by academic and author James S. Williams.
James S. Williams is Professor of Modern French Literature and Film at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of numerous works on contemporary French and African cinema, including Space and Being in Contemporary French Cinema (Manchester UP, 2013), Encounters with Godard: Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics (SUNY Press, 2016), Ethics and Aesthetics in Contemporary African Cinema: The Politics of Beauty (Bloomsbury, 2019), Frantz Fanon (Reaktion, 2023), and Xala (BFI Film Classics, 2024).
 
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02:30 pm
Sun, 15 Dec 2024
Cinema 2
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Cinema 2
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