ALBANY, New York, February 24, 2010 -- The song of the women of Mount Chenoua (La nouba des femmes du Mont-Chenoua, Algeria, 1977, 115 minutes, color, in Arabic with English subtitles, directed by Assia Djebar) will be shown on Friday, March 12 at 7:30 p.m. in Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, on the University at Albany's downtown campus. Sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute, the screening is free and open to the public. In her inventive, experimental debut as film director, major Maghrebi fiction writer Assia Djebar borrows the structure of the nouba, a five-part traditional song, to tell the story of a woman who returns to the town of her childhood fifteen years after the violent War of Independence.

For additional information contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at New York State Writers Institute