Review:

Zineb

Sedira’s

When

Words

Fall

Silent,

Cinema

Speaks…

at

Tate

Britain

Tate Britain has unveiled When Words Fall Silent, Cinema Speaks…, a major new commission by Zineb Sedira that transforms the museum’s Duveen Galleries into something far richer than a single installation. It feels closer to a fully realised exhibition, part archive, part film set, part historical reconstruction — a moment in time rebuilt inside the grand neo-classical space of Tate Britain.

Sedira’s starting point is the radical world of African and anti-colonial cinema in the 1960s and 70s, particularly the period following Algeria’s independence in 1962, when the country became a hub for filmmakers, activists and intellectuals from across Africa, Asia and South America. The installation explores cinema not simply as entertainment, but as a political tool — a vehicle for solidarity, resistance and collective imagination.