In the words of its début feature director, barakat! is ‘a women’s story that plays in a country wracked by violence’. Set in 1990 during the Civil War in Algeria, it follows Amel (Brakni), an emergency doctor who returns home to find her journalist husband kidnapped. Facing indifference from the authorities, she sets off in search of the underground Islamist group she believes responsible. Accompanying her is a feisty, older nurse (Bouamari), a veteran of her country’s war of independence and knowledgeable in the ways of warfare.