L'Avenir est ailleurs

True Justice: Bryan Stevenson's Fight for Equality

June 2019 •English

An intimate portrait of Alabama public interest attorney Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, who for more than three decades has advocated on behalf of the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned, seeking to eradicate racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.

Algerian Refugees

January 1958 •French

Directed by Pierre Clément and Djamel-Eddine Chanderli, produced by the FLN Information Service in 1958, this film is a rare document. Pierre Clément is considered one of the founders of Algerian cinema. In this film he shows images of Algerian refugee camps in Tunisia and their living conditions. A restored DVD version released in 2016, from the 35 mm original donated by Pierre Clément to the Contemporary International Documentation Library (BDIC).

The Blood Is at the Doorstep

March 2017 •English

After Dontre Hamilton, a black, unarmed man diagnosed with schizophrenia, was shot 14 times and killed by police in Milwaukee, his family embarks on a quest for answers, justice and reform as the investigation unfolds.

Algérie 1962: Chronique d'un conflit

January 1962 •French

De Charles de Gaulle à Emmanuel Macron, les gardiens de l'empire

March 2022 •French

L.A. Burning: The Riots 25 Years Later

April 2017 •English

Documentary film exploring the lives of the people at the flashpoint of the LA riots, 25 years after the uprising made national headlines and highlighted the racial divide in America.

Stay In Algeria

November 2012 •French

Algeria, summer 1962, eight hundred thousand French people left their native land in a tragic exodus. But 200,000 of them decided to attempt the adventure of independent Algeria. Over the following decades, political developments would push many of these pieds-noirs into exile towards France. But some never left. Germaine, Adrien, Cécile, Guy, Jean-Paul, Marie-France, Denis and Félix, Algerians of European origin, are among them. Some have Algerian nationality, others do not. Some speak Arabic, others do not. They are the last witnesses to the little-known history of these Europeans who remained out of loyalty to an ideal, a taste for adventure and an unconditional love for a land where they were born, despite all the ups and downs that the free Algeria in full construction had to go through.

Moudjahidate

November 2008 •French

Woman of Courage - Louisa Ighilahriz

January 2003 •Arabic

The autobiographical account of the tormented life of a witness of the century: Louisa Ighilahriz, activist and leading figure in Algerian independence. A student, she joined the independence struggle at the age of 20, joining the ranks of the FLN on the eve of the Battle of Algiers in late 1956 under the name Lila. She took part in the high school students' strike, then fled into the maquis when she was actively sought after. She was part of the French FLN support network of "suitcase carriers" during the Battle of Algiers. Seriously wounded alongside her network leader, Saïd Bakel, during an ambush in 1957, hospitalized and then imprisoned, she suffered numerous tortures in French prisons. She will be saved from certain death by an anonymous person, she will seek, for forty years, to find him just to show him her gratitude... Emblematic of the painful Franco-Algerian history, Louisa's story is poignant and imbued with humanism.

Black, White & Blue

February 2017 •English

Black White & Blue covers race issues in America, police brutality, the Black Lives Matter movement, the Flint Water Crisis, and the 2016 election of President Donald Trump. The film features one-on-one interviews with notable African-Americans: Michigan Senator Coleman Young II, Baltimore attorney William "Billy" Murphy Jr., rapper Killer Mike, former NYPD Officer Michael Dowd and others.

The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting

February 1983 •French

“La Zerda and the songs of oblivion” (1982) is one of only two films made by the Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, with “La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua” (1977). Powerful poetic essay based on archives, in which Assia Djebar – in collaboration with the poet Malek Alloula and the composer Ahmed Essyad – deconstructs the French colonial propaganda of the Pathé-Gaumont newsreels from 1912 to 1942, to reveal the signs of revolt among the subjugated North African population. Through the reassembly of these propaganda images, Djebar recovers the history of the Zerda ceremonies, suggesting that the power and mysticism of this tradition were obliterated and erased by the predatory voyeurism of the colonial gaze. This very gaze is thus subverted and a hidden tradition of resistance and struggle is revealed, against any exoticizing and orientalist temptation.

Papa Césaire

November 2009 •French

Shortly after his death in 2008, Maldoror made this film about her longtime friend and collaborator, the Négritude poet Aimé Césaire. In this film, she retraces the steps of Césaire’s travels across the globe — particularly back to his hometown in Martinique, where Maldoror interviews his relatives about his life — and her working relationship with Césaire, including fragments of her previous films about him, Un homme, une terre (1976) and Le masque des mots (1987).

Ma Traversée

November 2023 •French

Ma traversée is a personal quest, filmed over 20 years, recounting the racial issues and privileges that have punctuated the filmmaker’s life in three French-speaking societies: Guadeloupe, France and Quebec. From her own story emerges the broader narrative of colonization, colorism, assimilation, integration and the social benefits of “race” and their impact even today. Brutalized by police officers in Montreal in December 2017 in front of witnesses, the filmmaker takes a step back to understand this gesture, which speaks to the social interpretation of skin color.

François Mitterrand et la guerre d'Algérie

November 2010 •French

CHoosing at Twenty

August 2017 •French

Between 1954-1962, one hundred to three hundred young French people refused to participate in the Algerian war. These rebels, soldiers or conscripts were non-violent or anti-colonialists. Some took refuge in Switzerland where Swiss citizens came to their aid, while in France they were condemned as traitors to the country. In 1962, a few months after Independence, Villi Hermann went to a region devastated by war near the Algerian-Moroccan border, to help rebuild a school. In 2016 he returned to Algeria and reunited with his former students. He also met French refractories, now living in France or Switzerland.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

January 1996 •French

60 years ago, in the Algerian desert, an atomic bomb, equivalent to three or even four times Hiroshima, exploded. Named the “Blue Gerboise”, it was the first atomic bomb tested by France, and of hitherto unrivaled power. This 70 kiloton plutonium bomb was launched in the early morning, in the Reggane region, in southern Algeria, during the French colonial era. If this test allowed France to become the 4th nuclear power in the world, it had catastrophic repercussions. France had, at the time, certified that the radiation was well below the standard safety threshold. However, in 2013, declassified files revealed that the level of radioactivity had been much higher than announced, and had been recorded from West Africa to the south of Spain.

Twinkl

December 2008 •French

Martinique Island, 1974. Inspired by the writings of the Martiniquais poet and politician Aimé Césaire (1913-2008), the dreamer Robert Saint-Rose, known as Zétwall (Star in Creole), aspires to be the first Frenchman to step on the lunar surface.

It's Yours: A Film on Hip-Hop and the Internet

February 2020 •English

By the dawn of the 21st century, hip-hop sales had reached an all-time high, but one thing has remained the same. The doors were still locked, and the music industry held the keys. Young artists began to self-market on the Internet, ultimately helping to collapse the music industry as we knew it. It’s Yours explores how it became possible to become a rap star through a Twitter account, YouTube site or Myspace page. It tells this story through the unique perspectives of numerous artists, producers, record industry insiders, and music and cultural critics.

Emilie Busquant, une passion algérienne

January 2015 •French

Le Choix de mon père

September 2008 •French