The Battle of Algiers
Paratrooper commander Colonel Mathieu, a former French Resistance fighter during World War II, is sent to Algeria to reinforce efforts to squelch the uprisings of the Algerian War. There he faces Ali la Pointe, a former petty criminal who, as the leader of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, directs terror strategies against the colonial French government occupation. As each side resorts to ever-increasing brutality, no violent act is too unthinkable.
Forbidden Zone
In an Algerian village, just before the war of independence, the inhabitants are under the thumb of a local strongman and a wealthy merchant. Among them is El Faïza, an old woman searching for her son who has escaped from prison. The gendarmes arrest El Faïza and seize the property of the villagers who haven't paid their taxes. The situation is ripe for a revolt…
Breakdown
"Rupture is a look at a complex and little-known period in the recent history of Algeria, that of the thirties, a time when a political conscience was beginning to assert itself. I wanted to understand how and by what miracle, despite the small individual and collective revolts that had failed in the past, the unity of the Algerian people had been forged around the reconquest of independence. The main figures who worked, each in their own way, for this idea, are men who have always lived in the shadows and forgotten. And that's how I tried through this film to pay tribute to all those who gave up everything to dedicate themselves to a cause they considered just". Mohamed Chouikh
Brothers in Arms
From 1954 to 1962, during the Algerian War, French citizens provided concrete assistance to the FLN in France: sheltering refugees, forging documents, facilitating border crossings, and transporting funds. Whether committed to the ideals of the Republic or driven by Third Worldist revolutionaries, they sought to build a bridge of friendship between nations. They paid for their commitment with imprisonment and exile. Four veterans of the Jeanson network recall this period. Today, they are no longer seen as traitors or heroes, but as witnesses recounting "their" war... Silent for 30 years, the "Jeanson network" now bears witness to this history.
Paroles d'un Prisonnier Français de l'ALN
The image of French prisoners was very often evoked in Algerian cinema and literature, but until today, no Algerian or even European report or documentary had given voice to one of these French prisoners of the war of Algeria. In the interest of truth and writing history, we set out in search of one of these French witnesses. This witness is René Rouby, prisoner of Amirouche's group for more than 114 days in 1958 in the Akfadou region in Kabylia. This is the first testimony from a French prisoner of the ALN (the National Liberation Army).
Five Directors On The Battle of Algiers
This 17-minute documentary is featured on the 3-Disc Criterion Collection DVD of The Battle of Algiers (1966), released in 2004. An in-depth look at the Battle of Algiers through the eyes of five established and accomplished filmmakers; Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Oliver Stone, Julian Schnabel and Mira Nair. They discuss how the shots, cinematography, set design, sound and editing directly influenced their own work and how the film's sequences look incredibly realistic, despite the claim that everything in the film was staged .
Yaouled
A young Arab boy, a teenager "Yaouled", who lives on the streets and scrapes by doing odd jobs: shoe shining, street vending, etc. The film tells the story of a group of yaouleds from the Bab-el-Oued neighborhood, caught in the crossfire between the French settlers on one side and the Algerians on the other during the events of July 1962 in Algeria.
Our Algeria
"Djazaïrouna", produced by the cinema service of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA), is a montage film intended to inform the international community at the UN in 1959 on the objectives pursued by the Algerian resistance during the war of 'Algeria. Independence in Algeria (1954-1962). In 1959, Djamel-Eddine Chanderli and Mohammed Lakdar-Hamina produced Djazaïrouna (Our Algeria) from images taken by René Vautier and Doctor Pierre Chaulet. This film, completed a little later and will result in the film “The Voice of the People”. This documentary on the history of Algeria through a montage of current events, traces the political and military actions of the A.L.N, the demonstrations of December 1960, and the attack on a fortified French base on the border between Algeria and Tunisia.
December
In Algiers, during the Algerian War of Independence, one of the leaders of the FLN was arrested by the French colonial army, which used the most violent methods to make the prisoners speak. The use of torture poses a conscience problem for a French officer. Playing shot-reverse-shot, between the tortured and his torturer, in a suffocating camera, Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina approaches torture by drawing inspiration from the story of his father, who died of abuse.
They Joined the Front
In this film, four key witnesses, who live in Algeria today, as full-fledged Agerians, show us what this colonization was really like, so "beneficial" that they themselves perceived it as the oppression of one people by another. Three of them, who today would be called "pieds noirs," in other words, those Europeans to whom France, the occupying power, gave the best land, taken from the indigenous populations, work, and exclusive rights, not shared by the entire population, lived rather well compared to the majority of the "natives." The fourth was far from all that and lived in Argentina. Annie Steiner, Felix Colozzi, Pierre Chaulet, and Roberto Muniz explain to us what led them to show solidarity with the struggle of the weak, the humiliated, and to risk their freedom and their lives by committing to liberate Algeria.
Serkadji
In 1982, Hadj Rahim directed "Serkadji", a fiction film about the men's quarters of the Barberousse military prison in Algiers, where hundreds of FLN fighters were incarcerated and executed during the war of independence. Algeria between 1954 and 1962.
Algeria, Year Zero
Documentary on the beginnings of Algerian independence filmed during the summer of 1962 in Algiers. The film was banned in France and Algeria but won the Grand Prize at the Leipzig International Film Festival in 1965. Out of friendship, the production company Images de France sent an operator, Bruno Muel, who later declared: "For those who were called to Algeria (for me, 1956-58), participating in a film on independence was a victory over horror, lies and absurdity. It was also the beginning of my commitment to the cinema."
Dawn of the Damned
This excellent feature-length documentary - the story of the imperialist colonization of Africa - is a film about death. Its most shocking sequences derive from the captured French film archives in Algeria containing - unbelievably - masses of French-shot documentary footage of their tortures, massacres and executions of Algerians. The real death of children, passers-by, resistance fighters, one after the other, becomes unbearable. Rather than be blatant propaganda, the film convinces entirely by its visual evidence, constituting an object lesson for revolutionary cinema.
The Honour of the Tribe
Like every year in Zitouna, a bear handler passes by. With his creature, he comes to challenge the small community. And like every year, it is Slimane El Mabrouk who defends the honor of the tribe. But this time, he dies, leaving two orphans, Omar and Ourida. Robbed of their inheritance, the children will grow up alone. The years pass, the French army settles in, and with it, the war. Mysteriously, one day, after the murder of a French legionnaire, Omar disappears into the bush, while his sister dies in childbirth. Omar will return to the village, much later, once independence has been acquired, as a representative of power and with this enigmatic formula: "You must know that the Revolution has not forgotten you". Personal revenge? Sincere desire to bring progress and modernity? ... The inhabitants of Zitouna, upset in their ancestral way of life, will not be long in having an answer to their questions.
Hassan Terro's Escape
In 1957, the Battle of Algiers intensifies. Hassan, a peaceful resident of the Casbah, is mistakenly identified as a dangerous "terrorist leader," earning him the nickname "Hassan Terro." He is arrested, but the French occupation army secretly organizes his escape in the hope of tracking down the leaders of the resistance. In turn, the Algerian liberation army exploits Hassan's naivety to thwart the French military command and disperse its forces.
The Ultimate Goal: Independence
Delve into the story of the Algerian footballers who traded European pitches to join the fight for independence. In 1958, in the midst of the War of Independence, talented players secretly left their clubs to form the FLN team – a living symbol of the Algerian people's struggle. This clandestine team, banned by FIFA, served as a mouthpiece for the Algerian provisional government until 1962. Footballer Rachid Mekhloufi explained: “This departure of the best Algerian players playing in France was no accident. With the control of the media, few French people knew what was happening in Algeria. The FLN representatives in France were ahead of the curve in terms of publicity. Truly ahead of the curve, because a move like this allowed the French people and the rest of the world to open their eyes.”
Hassan Terro
While he tries by all means to stay out of the bloody upheavals caused by the battle of Algiers, Hassan, an honest and naive father, unknowingly offers hospitality to a mujahid actively sought by the army. French. A series of events and misunderstandings quickly catapult him to the forefront, presenting him under the pseudonym “Hassan Terro”, a great fictitious terrorist who would have sworn the doom of the French army...
How Much I Love You
Beginning with a promotional reel encouraging farming investments in Algeria and ending with the secret 1950s nuclear tests that France conducted using Algerian prisoners, How Much I Love You appropriates archival footage produced by the French colonial powers in Algeria. Meddour’s approach is disarmingly simple and yet awe-inspiring—his caustic undoing of colonial discourse is underscored by a liberating release of humor.
Harvest of Steel
Years after Algeria gained independence, war continues to claim lives in Soulima, a border village surrounded by mines, whose victims are too numerous to count. Despite all these deaths, the inhabitants remain rooted in their ancestral land. Among them stands out the noble figure of Zohra, who seems to be the soul of the village...
Pas De Blanc À La Une
Pas De Blanc À La Une, by Youcef Bouchouchi, treatises the brutality of the conflict during the war of independence in Algeria from 1854 to 1962, and the systematic use of torture which pushes even the most hesitant to make up their minds.