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Women Pioneers of Silent CinemaFilm 14 of 22
The Girl from Carthage
La fille de Carthage
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Aïn el-Ghezal (1924), directed by Albert Samama Chikly from a screenplay by his daughter Haydée, who also stars, is among the first narrative features made in Africa. A caïd's daughter is forced to marry a brutal farmer; she loves Taleb, the muezzin and schoolteacher; they flee into the desert; horsemen kill him and stab her as she covers his body. Haydée wrote it, she said, to show how badly women were treated when they were just sold off. Only a fragment survives, recently reconstructed from the family scenario. Haydée Chikly is counted as the first woman to write a film in Africa.
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Women Pioneers of Silent Cinema
Haydée Chikly wrote Aïn el-Ghezal and starred in it; her father, Albert Samama Chikly, directed. The opening title names her as author, which is the credit that belongs on this card. She later said she wrote the story to show how badly women were treated when they were sold into marriage. Only a fragment survives, later pieced together from the family scenario and paper documents held with the film. A Tunisian woman wrote a narrative feature in 1924, put her name on the first card, and most of those reels never reached a film archive. The writer is the pioneer credit.
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