SHASHA شاشة presents: Ali au pays des merveilles (1975)

Ace Hotel Brooklyn celebrates international independent cinema. In February, we invite Róisín Tapponi, founder of Habibi Collective to curate a screening as part of her newest initiative Shasha, the world’s first independent streaming service for South-West Asian and North African cinema. 

Together, we proudly present Djouhra Abouda and Alain Bonnamy’s Ali au pays des merveilles (1975), which was only very recently restored and screened on AnotherGaze.. The screening will be followed by drinks and music by Afghani artist Yeldā Ali in the Lobby.

Each ticket purchased comes with a free drink at the Lobby bar after the screening.

Róisín Tapponi is an Assyrian Iraqi-Irish film curator, programmer, writer and academic based in London. She is Founder of Habibi Collective, Founder CEO of Shasha Movies, Founder EIC of ART WORK Magazine and Co-Founder of Independent Iraqi Film Festival (IIFF). She has recently been awarded the ‘World-Leading PhD Art History Scholarship’ at St. Andrews University.

Ali au pays des merveilles (1975) is an experimental essay film about the condition of Algerian migrants in mid-seventies France, when Giscard d’Estaing was President and general Marcel Bigeard was Secretary of State for the Ministry of Defence. Ali au pays des Merveilles shows an increasingly devastating conflict between the actions of workers and those of the society that employs them without ever seeing or considering them.

The screening will be followed by drinks and music by artist and activist Yeldā Ali. In her commitment to creating self-sustaining safe spaces, Yeldā has produced over 200 educational experiences internationally. In 2015, she founded Camel Assembly, a womxn’s organization that now comprises thousands of womxn globally. In recent years, Yeldā has become a voice of representation for the Afghan diaspora, sharing stories of her culture and upbringing.