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 founding partner and editorial director of Stir. She is a Webster Award–winning arts journalist who has spent more than three decades immersed in Vancouver’s performing arts, film, and gallery scenes. She sits on the Vancouver Film Critics’ Circle.

Articles

V-Unframed fuses art and technology at Alliance Française Vancouver, November 12 to 15

Virtual reality exhibition features works by local and international artists, including a special presentation of Martin Messier’s 1 Drop 1000 Years

125, rue des Malaises finds humour in the most unlikely topic, October 27 at Alliance Française

Visions Ouest and Alliance Française present the Quebec comedy-drama about a healthy senior who gathers his clan at a cottage to announce his plans for MAID

The Chan Centre hosts National Geographic Live: Wild Cats Revealed With Sandesh Kadur, November 18

Award-winning filmmaker discusses his mission to highlight the unmatched diversity of wild cats in India

Stir Cheat Sheet: Author Sam Wiebe tags 10 Vancouver-shot horror films for the Halloween season

Cataloguing the campy to the harrowing, the writer behind Shot in Vancouver: Adventures in Hollywood North appears at the Vancouver Writers Fest on October 24 and 25

Acclaimed South Korean film Possible Love hits VIFF Centre starting October 23

Burning director Lee Chang-don takes a masterful look at the the wealth divide

European Union Film Festival launches 29th in-person edition, November 12 to 26

Continuing online from December 1 to 20, the program features a Ukraine solidarity screening of the powerful documentary Traces

Film review: You Had to Be There captures the unlikely show that launched a comedy revolution

New documentary uses retro animation and interviews with the likes of Martin Short, Eugene Levy, and Andrea Martin to recall the Toronto Godspell production that first connected future SNL and SCTV stars

TAXA gives the silent horror classic Nosferatu a new soundtrack at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, October 17

F.W. Murnau’s 1920 German Expressionist film—an unauthorized adaptation of Dracula—was nearly lost thanks to a lawsuit launched by Bram Stoker’s widow

Reimagining Justice: The Circle Project comes to the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, October 30 to November 7

In collaboration with artists Adad Hannah and Jin-me Yoon, these events feature video installations made by people with lived experience of incarceration

The Cinematheque enters Forbidden Rooms filled with unique Halloween horrors

Richard Martin’s locally made 1989 feature Matinee takes its place among dread-charged classics from around the world in this monthlong series

Film reviews: At VIFF, New German Cinema finds, Argentine analogue horror, and Vietnamese-Canadian reflections

Sometimes, I Imagine Them All at a Party’s wrenching return to a femicide attack; Trial of Hein’s strange seaside fable; Family Fears Another Night of Terror retro-’80s TV scarefest; and more

Marie Clements’s Reclaim My Skin pays sweeping homage to Indigenous female resurgence, at VIFF October 10

Yolonda Skelton’s remarkable paper dresses from the film series will be displayed on the day of the screening

For Mark Mothersbaugh, scoring a film means interpreting the language of the director

The DEVO member—coming to town as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival—has built a second career composing music for TV cartoons, Wes Anderson movies, and everything in between

Ahead of VIFF 2026, Joella Cabalu reflects on making space for intimate conversations about identity and relationships

Vancouver filmmaker’s latest feature documentary First Comes Love: Nakabingwit dives into the complexities of interracial relationships

At VIFF, Soran Mardookhi’s The Flight witnesses collective action fuelled by individual grief

The Kurdish-Canadian filmmaker’s feature documentary follows three families of Flight PS752 victims in their ongoing fight for justice

Stir Cheat Sheet: Vancouver International Film Festival programmers offer their under-the-radar picks

Curtis Woloschuk, Ruun Nuur, PoChu AuYeng, and Alan Franey dish on VIFF’s hidden hits, including a clever throwback to Dogme 95 and a documentary dubbed “one of the most important films of the year”

With Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney, Canadian filmmaker Matthew Rankin says he’s crafted “a maximalist film for a maximalist politician”

At the Vancouver International Film Festival, the Winnipeg writer-director forges a witty, fast-moving mashup of archival footage, ironic retro-design, and uncorked humour

Xiu Xiu explores the sonic and visual worlds of David Lynch’s surrealist horror classic Eraserhead

At VIFF Live, the experimental rock band’s Jamie Stewart and Angela Seo imagine what sights and sounds could exist beyond the edges of the writer-director’s debut feature

Whistler Film Festival announces B.C. highlights, including Chris Carter’s Queens for a Day and Vic Sarin’s The Lightkeeper

Event’s 26th edition runs December 2 to 6, with X-Files creator hosting master class at Content Summit

Shadbolt Centre hosts a screening of Nosferatu featuring a live score by TAXA, October 17

The seminal 1922 German Expressionist film meets noise-driven punk rock

The Last Angel of History launches this year’s expansive VIFF Live programming, October 2

More highlights include a collaboration with Montreal’s MUTEK festival and an intimate masterclass with Emmy and BAFTA–winning composer Cristóbal Tapia de Veer

Other Light explores the power of light as a political and spiritual force, to November 28

The installation at the Western Front includes hourly screenings of Uzbekistani artist Saodat Ismailov’s films Melted into the Sun and To the Throat of the Sun

In “Sisters”, Vancouver’s Maria Munro honours the life of her long-lost sibling

The filmmaker’s directorial debut, screening at the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival, traces her personal journey to unite with a sister she never knew existed

At Vancouver Latin American Film Festival, Mayra Hermosillo discovers empathy on both sides of camera

Mexican actor and first-time feature director reflects on the powers of film to find the universal in the local and reveal new sides of an artist’s personality