"This book, via an analysis of cinema, provides a discussion on some misunderstandings and assumptions about Algeria, which remains to a large extent underrepresented or misrepresented in the UK media. It is about Algerian national cinema and illuminates the ways in which the official mythologising of a national culture at the 'centre' of the postcolonial state has marginalised the diverse identities within the nation. 'Tahia ya didou' occupies a pivotal position between fiction and documentary, capturing the hectic modernization of the Boumediene era while reflecting back on the aftermath of historical trauma. 'La Citadelle presents' gender differences as culturally engrained and patriarchal power as secure. 'Youcef', 'Bab El-Oued City' and 'Rome plutôt que vous' present differing visions of how a Freudian melancholia in the shadow of a crushed revolt might relate to Algerian experience after Black October. 'Lettre à ma soeur' listens to the voices of the subaltern; the film is a sense of re-emergence that follows the initial insurgency of Nabila's activism, the trauma of her killing and the subsequent years of silence and self-imposed incarceration.