Decolonizing Minds - Dutch premiere - The first feature film about Frantz Fanon (2024)
Decolonizing Minds: Dutch Premiere at Ventilator Cinema
Decolonizing Minds is a film screening and discussion series at Ventilator Cinema, dedicated to exploring colonial history, resistance, and identity through Indigenous and diasporic cinema.
Join us for a special Dutch premiere — the first feature film about Frantz Fanon, author of Les Damnés de la Terre (The Wretched of the Earth).
Special Screening
The First Feature Film About the Author of “Les Damnés de la Terre” Directed by Abdenour Zahzah
(True Chronicles of the Blida Joinville Psychiatric Hospital in the Last Century, when Dr Frantz Fanon Was Head of the Fifth Ward between 1953 and 1956)
Synopsis 1953, Algeria under French colonial rule. Frantz Fanon, a young Black psychiatrist newly appointed to the Blida-Joinville Hospital, begins applying his radical ideas of institutional psychotherapy in defiance of the racist doctrines of colonial psychiatry. As the Algerian War of Independence erupts, the struggle enters his very wards, forcing Fanon to confront the contradictions between healing the colonized mind and the ongoing oppression beyond the hospital walls.
About the Film
This is the first narrative feature about the revolutionary psychiatrist and author of Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth. Director Abdenour Zahzah brings to life Fanon’s transformation from doctor to anti-colonial thinker, drawing on authentic hospital archives, Fanon’s patient journals, and his writings on psychiatry and colonialism.
Shot in the very hospital where Fanon once worked — now bearing his name — the film blurs the line between documentary and fiction. It features both professional actors and non-actors, including real doctors, nurses, and even Fanon’s son, Olivier Fanon.
“A representation of a living memory,” says Zahzah — “restoring Fanon’s presence in a place where medicine, politics, and liberation converged.”
About the Director
Abdenour Zahzah is an Algerian screenwriter and filmmaker, and former director of the Blida Cinémathèque (1998–2003). His early work includes Frantz Fanon, mémoire d’asile (2002). After acclaimed documentaries and his award-winning short Garagouz, Zahzah makes his feature fiction debut (2024) with this powerful portrayal of Fanon’s Blida-Joinville years.
Talk Host
Khadija al Mourabit – Dutch philosopher, writer, poet, and lecturer of Amazigh-Moroccan descent. Her work explores identity, migration, and cultural heritage in both Dutch and Tamazight. A passionate advocate for social justice and women’s voices, al Mourabit bridges cultures and generations through her writing and community work.
Times:
Doors open: 19:00 hrs
Start program: 19:30-22.00 hrs
Drinks at the bar: 22:00
More info about the film: CLICK HERE
