Output details

Al Khadra, Poet of the Desert

‘Al Khadra, Poet of the Desert’ is an experiment in the use of documentary film-making as an ethnographic tool; and also in the use of documentary filmic language, interweaving images, poetry and music.

Al Khadra is a Saharawi war poetess, living in a refugee camp in Algeria. Now in her 70’s, her oral verse is testament to three decades of Saharan conflict. This experimental documentary film uses the process of film making as an ethnographic research tool.

In preparation for making the film, Mendelle undertook archival research on the history of the Saharawi people. This was combined with interviews with specialists in North African politics as well as journalists and NGOs who work in the region.

Filming took place over two weeks; but the making of ‘Al Khadra, Poet of the Desert’ was not just an observational operation. Mendelle used her background in Women's Studies to find methods to engage with the poet herself.

Mendelle and Luis Correia, the Director of Photography on the project, lived with Khadra’s family during the shoot. In order to ground herself in the community and to use local talent to participate in the making of the film, Mendelle organised ran workshops and enhance local skills at a newly-formed film school in one of the refugee camps.

The edit, with Susi Korda, was a negotiation between Mendelle and Al Jazeera TV who wanted an information-led type of documentary, while Mendelle used it poetically, to play metonymically with tactile, close-up shots, and distant, ocular ones.

The film was funded and broadcast in 2012 by Al Jazeera and has been screened by international festivals with an interest in human rights. The film led to the production of a six part series on ‘Poets of Protest Post-Arab Spring’ from a female perspective.