La Rockeuse du Désert profiles Algeria's reigning female rocker, at The Cinematheque on February 12

Rendez-Vous French Film Festival matinee features Q&A with Quebec director Sarah Nacer

Septuagenarian guembri player Hasna El Becharia has long bucked tradition, at right.

Rendez-Vous French Film Festival and Alliance française de Vancouver present La Rockeuse du Desert (with English subtitles) at the Cinematheque on February 12 at 2:15 pm, with a Q&A by director Sara Nacer; presented as part of Black History Month

TRANSLATING AS “Rocker of the Desert”, La Rockeuse du Désert profiles septuagenarian Hasna El Becharia, Algeria’s first woman to play the guitar-like guembri.

El Becharia is an Gnawa icon who’s devoted her life to empower women of all ages, inspiring them to reclaim a musical tradition historically led by men.

Full of rhythmic music, dazzling desert imagery, archival histories, and interviews with the pioneering guembri-player (see the trailer below), the film is directed by Quebec’s Sara Nacer, who traces her heritage back to Algeria, is in town Sunday at The Cinematheque for a Q&A about the vibrant new documentary. Laura Bustillos Jáquez provides the assured cinematography.

World-music lovers will walk away with a new appreciation for Gnawa music and for a woman who genuinely rocks.

Featured

Janet Smith

Janet Smith is cofounder and editorial director of Stir. She is an award-winning arts journalist who has spent more than two decades immersed in Vancouver’s dance, screen, design, theatre, music, opera, and gallery scenes. She sits on the Vancouver Film Critics’ Circle.

Articles

Nechako: It Will Be a Big River Again brings struggle over B.C.’s Kenney Dam to VIFF Centre, June 6 to 21

Lyana Patrick’s NFB documentary, recounting the Stellat’en and Saik’uz Nations’ ongoing fight for justice, returns for local screenings

The Cinematheque spotlights Robert Bresson in Secret Laws of the Cinematograph, to July 2

Series includes all 13 of the French director’s films, including A Man Escaped, Pickpocket, Au hasard Balthazar, and more

The True Story of Tamara De Lempicka & The Art of Survival digs beneath Art Deco painter’s glossy surfaces

Julie Rubio’s extensive new documentary, making its local debut at the VIFF Centre, reveals a trailblazing woman who was an outsider on several counts

Vancouver Short Film Festival unveils lineup for 15th annual edition, June 13 to 15

HATCH, Clementine, One Day This Kid, and Beyond the Salish are among the 47 Canadian shorts screening this year

Cinematheque celebrates the spare, transcendent vision of Robert Bresson

In the retrospective Secret Laws of the Cinematograph, the enigmatic French director’s hugely influential career comes into intense focus

DOXA Documentary Film Festival names 2025 award winners

Saints and Warriors, #skoden, and Sudan, Remember Us are among the titles that secured wins

Queering Cinema series brings five form-pushing features to the VIFF Centre, May 15 to June 12

Moonlight, Tehran: City of Love, and more explore themes of loneliness, belonging, and desire in program curated by Fay Nass

Love and monsters stalk the backwoods of Kourtney Roy's macabre Kryptic

Ahead of a special live-scored screening, the renowned photographer and director reflects on “liminal spaces” and gore-filled supernatural encounters

Film reviews: At DOXA, haunting exposés, off-grid hermits, and meaningful cooking

Mr. Nobody Against Putin takes an urgent look at Russian indoctrination; Spare My Bones, Coyote! finds horrors at the U.S. border; Eight Postcards From Utopia runs weird commercials from free-market Romania; and more

Stir Q&A: At DOXA, Baljit Sangra throws a spotlight on an undersung Canadian jazz songstress

In Have You Heard Judi Singh?, Vancouver director interweaves archival footage, re-created moments, and mesmerizing music in tribute to late Punjabi-Black artist

At DOXA, Paul explores the loneliness and anxiety of a “cleaning simp”

Montreal filmmaker Denis Côté started out making a portrait of a shy BDSM worker and ended up capturing a generation’s encounter with the endless recursions of social media

Nechako: It Will Be a Big River Again follows the flow of a multigenerational legal battle at DOXA

In NFB documentary, Lyana Patrick chronicles the environmental harm caused by the Kenney Dam

At DOXA's Justice Forum, The Pickers follows migrant workers on European farms, May 2

A panel discussion with workers and community advocates takes place after the VIFF Centre screening

Tea Creek and Firma Aquí take top awards at Sundar Prize Film Festival

Mareya Shot Keetha Goal: Make the Shot won a spot as best B.C. feature, plus much more as Surrey-based event hands out cash and development support

Film review: Carl Bessai travels through time and midlife crisis in Field Sketches

Moving from architectural marvel to frozen cabin, the film mixes bitter humour with a poetic fugue fuelled by familial trauma

Are We Done Now? is a bittersweet exploration of the way lockdown changed us all

Vancouver director Ben Immanuel drew from his acting students’ real experiences to craft a funny and poignant collaborative film that was years in the making

VIFF champions local artists for Canadian Film Week with 18 features, April 11 to 17

Program includes Vancouver premieres, returning classics, and a tribute to Tracey Friesen and free screenings on National Canadian Film Day

Activism and B.C.-made world premieres as DOXA Documentary Film Festival unveils more of its programming

New paraDOXA initiative will highlight experimental films like To Use a Mountain

Sundar Prize Film Festival opener Paper Flowers ensures the sun never sets on Shalin Shah's legacy

Director Mahesh Pailoor and producer Asit Vyas tell the impactful true story of a young man diagnosed with terminal cancer

DOXA Documentary Film Festival announces opening and closing night films for 2025 edition

In Aisha’s Story, a Palestinian matriarch uses food for generational healing, while Saints and Warriors follows a Haida basketball team

A Practice of Yielding brings a public symposium and film premiere to the Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, March 21

Event presented by SFU School for the Contemporary Arts features a screening of In the Garden of Forking Paths

Can I Get a Witness? asks big questions about how far we’d go for the common good

First-time film actor Keira Jang takes a leading role in Vancouver director Ann Marie Fleming’s dark “satire” about a bucolic post-collapse future that comes with a catch