Une Rencontre à Blida, At the beginning of the twentieth century, a chance encounter takes place in Blida. Nicknamed the “city of roses” and founded in the Middle Ages by Andalusian refugees who came to the Maghreb after the Reconquista, it became, under colonial rule, the headquarters of Algeria’s First Military Region.
Because of its geographical position at the foot of the Atlas Mountains and at the center of the Mitidja plain, one of the showpieces of French colonization it drew in the displaced, the poor, and the unlucky, all hoping to build a future or simply to survive.
Inspired by real events and nourished by firsthand testimonies, this story follows a young man without family and a young woman without family who meet by pure chance in Blida. Brought into each other’s lives, they form a powerful bond that endures for more than ten years, even as life separates them.
Though the tale unfolds within the framework of larger History, it is not a history book. Let us set History aside and look with warmth at these two orphans to whom life has given very little.