Rachida

'Each coin is a dream - only the nightmare is free in this country.' This debut tells of a young Algerian woman, who's shot and left for dead after she refuses to plant a bomb at the school where she teaches. She escapes to a mountain village with her mother, where she eventually regains her confidence and returns to work. The storyline is simple and the camerawork unsophisticated, but writer/director Yamina Bachir-Chouikh attempts to explores some weightier, more awkward subjects, particularly those affecting Algerian women: the pressure on divorced women to hide their faces in shame, the impossibility of marriage for girls who are raped by their kidnappers, as well as the ever present threat of violence and terrorism that plagues her country.