A giant sign proclaims: 'WHEN WORDS FALL SILENT, CINEMA SPEAKS …' Nearby, a board displays slogans such as 'CINEMA AS A WEAPON'. From the outset, Zineb Sedira's exhibition at Tate Britain presents itself as both a manifesto and an aesthetically pleasing arrangement of films and sculptures. These phrases prompt questions: if art is a weapon, who wields it, what conflict is being fought, and is it still effective? What silence persists, and who is speaking out against it?
A Case Study of La Cinémathèque Algérienne
To address these questions, Sedira focuses on La Cinémathèque Algérienne, established in 1965, which became a hub for leftist African filmmakers. In a model movie theatre with flip-down seats, a short documentary centres on the cinema's director, Boudjemaâ Karèche. His stylish beret hints at his character, confirmed by his recollections of the cinema in the 1970s. It was a place where clever, idealistic young people gathered to watch revolutionary art, debate building a better world, and perhaps connect romantically.
Recreating an Algerian Cafe in Paris
Sedira's recreation of an Algerian cafe in Paris circa 1974 argues that these aspirations need not conflict. A jukebox plays music, the bar serves wine and couscous, and tables are strewn with books on leftist cinema. The heady atmosphere suggests that intellectual life should not be separated from pleasure, and that discussing injustice while drinking with friends is not contradictory. This Francophone perspective might evoke 'radical chic' in some minds.
However, Sedira's installation succeeds because it delivers its story with charm, technical skill, and personal depth. It honours Karèche's belief that a film's political message must first function as cinema. To avoid propaganda, a politically conscious artwork must excite the senses and never pretend impartiality. Sedira, born in Paris to Algerian parents and a London resident since 1986, makes no claim to be a disinterested observer. This is both a history lesson and an attempt to reconstruct a home from Algeria's brutal liberation from France, shaping her identity as a diaspora member and socially engaged artist.
Attention to detail is evident: the vintage jukebox monitor plays clips from Agnès Varda's Salut les Cubains, still images in films are animated, a mobile cinema interior is meticulously recreated, and a photograph of James Baldwin in Paris alongside a Palestinian pennant suggests artistic solidarity. This tribute to romantic intellectualism is so seductive that one wishes the bar were serving and the crowd livelier. Indeed, it makes you long to be in an Algiers cinema at night, ideally in the late 1960s.
The Difficulty of Restaging Revolution
The exhibition's final film explicitly states the difficulty. When the Pan-African cultural festival of 1969 was restaged 40 years later, its revolutionary energy had faded. Artists who once shared dormitories now wanted hotels and limousines. William Klein, who documented the original festival, asked organisers: 'We were revolutionaries, that's why we created the festival. Why are you creating this one?' The question 'chilled the room' and casts a pall over the exhibition. Restaging revolutionary moments in museums can preserve them in aspic, consigning them to history. If revolution is coming, it will be screened on phones, not in cinemas. Does this exhibition merely bask in reflected glory, or might it catalyse change?
La Cinémathèque Algérienne offers a lesson: becoming a revolutionary artist involves not just watching or making films, but opening that possibility for others. Truly revolutionary art makes the public feel more able to express themselves. It does so by offering models, exciting people, insisting art is not for the wealthy or educated alone, and showing it as something worth doing that enriches life and connects people. By these measures, Sedira's show is a success.
Zineb Sedira's installation is at Tate Britain's Duveen Galleries until 17 January.
