Roqia (Scottish Premiere)

Part of Dundead Film Festival 2026. DCA Supporters, Members and 18-25 Members get early access to tickets and passes (log in to access) with the festival opening for general sale on Fri 27 March at 10:00.

A disturbing supernatural horror from Algeria, Roqia is an unflinching portrait of a country torn apart by violence. Set against the real-life backdrop of Algeria’s “Black Decade”, a period marked by extremist violence, this is a film which uses the language and tropes of horror to excavate and exorcise, as well as to unsettle. It is a film which presents its supernatural and real-life horrors with equal matter-of-factness. 

In the present day, an ageing exorcist struggles with Alzheimer’s while a wave of demonic possessions ripples through the city. In the past, a wounded man returns from war, his head bandaged. Disquieting chants, social unease and extreme violence ripple through time as these narratives converge. 

This is a film that perhaps asks more questions than it answers. It is entirely possible to read it as a “straight-forward” tale of supernatural evil. Like The Exorcist, this is a film which proposes that evil, Satan and demons are real, and like the way Friedkin’s film uses Christianity, the forces of darkness in Roqia are kept at bay through the Islamic faith. 

It is a troubling, thought-provoking watch, with very strong violence, but at its heart is an admonishment of that violence, and a grasping for the protection and liberation of the human soul.