Shafia Boudraa (Atika Boudraa)

Shafia Boudraa was born in Constantine and lost her husband, an ALN freedom fighter who fell as a martyr in 1960 during the War of Independence, leaving her to raise their children alone in poverty. Moving to Algiers, she turned her personal resilience into sublime dramatic art.

In 1974, director Mustapha Badie cast her as Lalla Aïni in the televised adaptation of Mohammed Dib's 'L'Incendie' (The Fire). Her breathtaking portrayal of the exhausted, fiercely loving mother fighting for a loaf of bread to feed her children made her a universal mother figure to all Algerians, later starring in Rachid Bouchareb's 'Hors-la-loi' at Cannes.