Theater Is A Must 9th edition “Repossess” – “لازم مسرح النسخة التاسعة “استرداد

“Koulounisation” by Salim Djaferi: “I came to Algiers for the first time in July 2018. Because of my Algerian heritage, I had been curious about the colonization of Algeria and more precisely, about the years before independence. However, my knowledge of that period was superficial and limited. It came from French historians, snippets of family stories, and fragmentary textbooks. I decided that Algeria was the best place to start learning about this history in context and set off to buy books written by Algerians themselves. I went to a bookstore in the city center of Algiers and looked for the section dedicated to the “Algerian War” for some time. I couldn’t find anything. I was about to give up, but I couldn’t believe that there would be no books on the topic in that store. Confused, I asked for the bookseller’s help, she answered without missing a beat that “All of the books on the Algerian War are in the ‘Revolution’ section”. Yes, of course: it was a Revolution. Only I had never given it that name, and therefore never really thought about it as such. I immediately started to think about this key difference: who taught me to say “war”, and who taught them to say “revolution”? Did the words evoke the same historical facts on each side of the Mediterranean Sea? If it exists, what would the right word be? With this discovery came the revelation of my ignorance. I knew factual history alright – the dates, the stakes, the main actors – but I was ignorant of the semantics and their ideological function. I didn’t end up buying a book. This anecdote was a trigger and a spark. I came across the tip of the iceberg that hints at something much larger and unknown. Ever since that day, I have carefully been writing down all the words that make up this iceberg and the ways in which I encounter them. There are many. Some I encounter randomly, some I look for with intention, and sometimes I find myself on an adventure like that of the bookstore. Woven from anecdotes and encounters, Koulounisation is shaped by others’ stories and the words that they use to tell these stories.”

Language: French with Arabic and English subtitles.

The event: +16 years