The story of a woman returning to her birthplace fifteen years after the Algerian War of independence, La nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua (The Nouba of the Women of Mount Chenoua) is one of only two films by Algerian novelist Assia Djebar. Looking for a musical language to structure the film, Djebar adopted the form of the Andalusian Nuba, similar to the musical suite and one of the most important classical traditions in North African music. In the writer’s own words, the film is “constructed from documentary sounds, that is to say, from conversations of peasant women recorded on tape. That’s the primary core of the film. Then I tried to visualize what they were telling me.”