About movie

Ayda, lioness among the Free Lions

Original title Ayda, lioness among the Free Lions

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“Ayda, lioness among the Free Lions” by Metje Postma follows the life of Ayda Saeed, a female member of the Free Lions Forces, an armed militia established by Sudanese Rashaida rebels between 1999 and 2006. Set in 2006 during peace negotiations with the Sudanese government, the film follows Ayda’s daily life in the Al Gerda camp near the Sudanese border in Tessenei, Eritrea. Amidst working on a tent-restoration project for Mabruk Mubarak, the leader of the Free Lions, Ayda navigates personal and political dynamics, providing insight into the Rashaida community’s struggle for identity and autonomy.

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Author/s Metje Postma

Metje Postma is a visual anthropologist and documentary filmmaker. She was a lecturer in visual ethnography at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University from 1990 till 2023. Besides Ayda, Lioness Among the Free Lions (2024, 110’, Eritrea), she has made – and collaborated in the making of – several Ethnographic documentaries, including: Por Que se Van? (1985, 16mm/58’, Spanish Pyrenees), Aruz al Dura (1993, video/40’, Sudan), Of Men and Mares (1998, 16mm/90’, The Netherlands), and Voices in the Desert, the Rashaida and Fuzum (2005, video/70’, Eritrea). Metje also wrote several articles on visual ethnography as a research method.

Research Fuzum Tewelde
Photography Metje Postma
Sound Metje Postma
Editing Metje Postma; advisors: Arjanne Laan, David MacDougall, Gary Kildea, Jet Homoet, Mark Westmoreland