Peek into the double life of Goucem, club-hopping siren by night and career-girl mistress of a married doctor by day. Fifi, her faithful friend, prostitutes herself for a powerful and “kind” protector. Papicha, the mother, spends her life nibbling pizzas while watching TV, and oscillates between her present fears and her nostalgia for the time when she was a famous cabaret dancer. This drama, from Nadir Moknèche, known as the Algerian Almodóvar, of the intertwined lives of three women in mood-drenched Algiers, a city split between a proud and vibrant past and a violent present conjures up atmosphere as it compassionately portrays women caught by tradition as they reach for modernity. -AHSViva Laldjérie is the second film by Nadir Moknèche. His first film, The Harem of Madame Osmane, opened in theatres to critical acclaim in France in 2000 after screening at numerous international festivals. After growing up in Algiers, Nadir studied in France, and then at New York’s New School for Social Research, where he made two shorts Jardin and the award-winning Hanifa.