

The revolution started in the psych ward — and the doctor was armed with radical empathy.
1953, colonized Algeria. Fanon, a young black psychiatrist is appointed head doctor at the Blida-Joinville Hospital. He was putting his theories of ‘Institutional Psychotherapy’ into practice in opposition to the racist theories of the Algies School of Psychiatry, while a war broke out in his own wards.
Direction
Zahzah blends reenactment and archive with surgical precision.
Acting
Desane channels Fanon's intellectual charisma without hagiography.
Editing
Cuts between 1953 and present-day Algeria are devastating.

Director
Abdenour Zahzah
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The real Blida-Joinville Hospital was demolished in 2016; Zahzah shot interiors in a functioning psychiatric ward in Oran.
Fanon's 'Institutional Psychotherapy' directly inspired anti-psychiatry movements in 1960s France — patients as political subjects, not cases.
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