Indy Movie Night: Battle of Algiers + Elaine Mokhtefi
A clandestine bombmaker places explosives in the handbags of three young Algerian women. They each wear fashionable clothes and haircuts and disperse into the crowded city to place their deadly wares. Their upscale destinations — a cafe, a dance club and an airport lounge — are full of civilians. As the minute hand on the wall clock in the cafe marches toward the zero hour, the camera pans over the unsuspecting victims — friends hunched over a table in conversation, a baby licking an ice cream cone, young people dancing to merengue music. The camera doesn’t judge. It invites viewers to ask themselves under what circumstances, if any, they could justify such an act.
This is one of many dramatic scenes from The Battle of Algiers, the classic 1966 film about repression and resistance in French Algeria in the years leading up to that country’s independence. With the struggle in Palestine dominating the news, we’ll screen Battle of Algiers at Starr Bar on Tuesday, April 23 at 6 p.m.
To see a trailer for the movie, click here.
Following the film, we’ll be joined by an extraordinary guest. Elaine Mokhtefi moved to Algeria in 1962 – the year the French were kicked out of the country — and worked for the new revolutionary government for 12 years.
During her time in Algeria, Mokhtefi covered anti-colonial movements for the Algeria Press Service and collaborated with American radicals who sought refuge in Algeria in the late 1960s including members of the Black Panther Party and LSD guru Timothy Leary. Mokhtefi, who now lives in New York City, wrote about that era of revolutionary ferment in a 2018 memoir titled Algiers, Third World Capital: Freedom Fighters, Revolutionaries, Black Panthers.
Starr Bar is located at 214 Starr Street in Bushwick, Brooklyn. To purchase a ticket, click here. This event is a fundraiser for The Indypendent.
This will be the fourth film we’ve screened at Starr Bar since November as a part of our Palestine film series. On March 7, we screened Born in Gaza, a documentary that follows the lives of 10 Palestinian children following Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza. Afterward, The Indy’s Associate Editor Amba Guerguerian interviewed Palestinian writers Sarah Aziza and Farah Barqawi and Egyptian journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous about the war in Gaza and how it might end. To watch the interview, click here. Amba will also conduct the interview with Elaine Mokhtefi on April 23.
April 17: Psychedelics and Revolution
Speaking of LSD gurus, Indypendent Contributing Editor Nicholas Powers will be speaking at Starr Bar this Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. on psychedelics and revolution. He will share how healing in private therapy shares the dynamics of social movements. The surprising gift that psychedelic therapy offers, Powers argues, is to spark change with utopian visions rather than the horror of a moral crisis like police killings. Hope can be a more sustainable drive than rage or fear. Admission to this talk is free. For more by Nicholas Powers on psychedelics and the ‘60s generation, read this tribute to his mother.