The 2020 foreign-language Oscar race is off to a promising start. Algeria is the first country to submit a feature for contention and it’s a woman-directed title, Mounia Meddour’s “Papicha.” The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the news.

Set in the 1990s during the Algerian Civil War, the drama tells the story of Nedjma (Lyna Khoudri), “a fashion-obsessed young woman who, together with her girlfriend, Wassila (Shirine Boutella), makes money selling garments they’ve made in the bathroom of local dance club to the ‘papichas,’ or ‘pretty girls,'” the source summarizes. “Like the rest of the country, they will soon be caught up in Algeria’s bloody civil war. But the pair continue to fight for their freedom, and for their dream of staging their own fashion show.”

“‘Papicha’ grew out of my own story,” Meddour has said. “It’s autobiographical. I lived in Algeria in the ’90s, was studying journalism, and worked on a small radio program. I lived in this university residence and I shared a room with five or six other girls. In those bedrooms we had all types of people. There were very serious students, others were really boring and some were into partying. Obviously it was really important for me to feed the storyline with contextual information and background about what was the situation at that time.”

“Papicha” marks Meddour’s feature debut. The film premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section this year.

Nominees for the 2020 edition of the Oscars will be announced on January 13 and the ceremony is set to take place February 9.

“Caupernaum” was the sole woman-directed film to receive a foreign-language nod this year. Nadine Labaki’s drama centers on a 12-year-old boy who sues his parents for bringing him into a world of pain and suffering.