Two Meetings and a Funeral

At one point in the documentary Two Meetings and a Funeral (2017, directed by Naeem Mohaiemen, Algerian university students amble through the frame, navigating present-day Constantine 1 University, a campus distinguished by a collection of structures designed by Brazilian communist architect Oscar Niemeyer, oblivious to the history that gave rise to them. The publisher and Frantz Fanon scholar Samia Zennadi is asked what remains in Algeria of the halcyon 1970s spirit. She says, “A lot of empty words, speech that sounds fake… it’s as if we missed a turn and are now stuck.” Aging modernist gems serving an apolitical student body borne of a disillusioned society perfectly encapsulate the fate of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Continuing filmmaker Naeem Mohaiemen’s attention to the failures of the global left, the story of the NAM as a two-fold loss—first as political manifestation and second as memory—is the subject of this remarkable three-channel film....