Gerboise Bleue

Papillon

December 1973 •English

A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.

Algeria in Flames

January 1958 •Arabic

These are the first images shot in the ALN maquis, camera in hand, at the end of 1956 and in 1957. These war images taken in the Aurès-Nementchas are intended to be the basis of a dialogue between French and Algerians for peace in Algeria, by demonstrating the existence of an armed organization close to the people. Three versions of Algeria in Flames are produced: French, German and Arabic. From the end of the editing, the film circulates without any cuts throughout the world, except in France where the first screening takes place in the occupied Sorbonne in 1968. Certain images of the film have circulated and are found in films, in particular Algerian films. Because of the excitement caused by this film, he was forced to go into hiding for 25 months. After the declaration of independence, he founded the first Algerian Audiovisual Center.

Sahara

April 2005 •English

Seasoned adventurer and treasure hunter Dirk Pitt, a former Navy SEAL, sets out for the African desert with his wisecracking buddy Al in search of a confederate ironclad battleship rumored to have vanished long ago, the main draw being the treasure supposedly hidden within the lost vessel. When the daring duo come across Dr. Eva Rojas, a beautiful scientist who is juggling an escape from a warlord and a mission to stop the spread of a powerful plague, their desert expedition begins to heat up.

The Day After

December 1983 •English

In the mid-1980s, the U.S. is poised on the brink of nuclear war. This shadow looms over the residents of a small town in Kansas as they continue their daily lives. Dr. Russell Oakes maintains his busy schedule at the hospital, Denise Dahlberg prepares for her upcoming wedding, and Stephen Klein is deep in his graduate studies. When the unthinkable happens and the bombs come down, the town's residents are thrust into the horrors of nuclear winter.

Fort Saganne

May 1984 •French

In 1911, a willful and determined man from peasant stock named Charles Saganne enlists in the military and is assigned to the Sahara Desert under the aristocratic Colonel Dubreuilh.

Traps

August 1994 •English

The year is 1950 and an English couple, Louise and Michael, have arrived in French-occupied Indochina to cover a story on a French-owned rubber plantation. They are to be the guests of the enigmatic plantation overseer, Daniel, and his beautiful yet difficult daughter Viola, at their elegant, decaying villa amid a tropical jungle. Michael and Louise hope that some time spent working in an exotic location will help reignite the passion in their floundering marriage. Instead they become unwittingly involved in the personal, sexual and political tensions of their hosts. Daniel is desperate to hold onto a way of life no longer possible in a country struggling for independence, bringing him into conflict with not only his daughter but also with his adopted country.

Heritage Africa

January 1989 •English

The story of Quincy Bosomfield who is the product of colonial education and has risen to become the district commissioner. In the process, he abandons his African heritage and all that has real meaning to him.

Le Grand Désert

December 1950 •French

In 1950, the explorer Roger Frison-Roche made a crossing of more than a thousand kilometers on the back of a camel with the photographer Georges Tairraz II, in the heart of the Sahara, from Hoggar then Djanet in Algeria to Ghat in Libya. From their journey they brought back a large number of color films and documents. Among thousands of photos, they selected 47 images which reflect the various aspects of these immense spaces which occupy a third of Africa in the book "The Great Desert". “The Great Desert, 1000 kilometers on camelback” is the eponymous 85-minute documentary of this epic, released in 1950.

The Harem of Madame Osmane

July 2000 •French

In Algiers in 1993, while the civil war is starting, Mrs Osmane's tenants have to endure her bad temper. Her husband left her and the fear to lose her respectability haunt her. The former member of the Resistance during the Independence War persists in controlling the slightest moves of the households rather than struggle against her own frustrations. Learning her daughter is in love, the possibility of finding herself alone will push her to the limit: The symbolical Mrs Osmane "harem" is about to collapse.

How Much I Love You

May 1985 •Arabic

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.

Azure Dust - Inside Chernobyl's Exclusion Zone

April 2016 •English

The story about Chornobyl area, all around the world we know of the disaster in 1986. The film may be called a guide to the Exclusion Zone. Thanks to the unique footage from the place of the tragedy, that the crew succeeded to capture, the viewers will have a chance for a full immersion into the atmosphere of the events and, along with the heroes of the film, feel the dreadful and amazing air that reigns where one of the major anthropogenic disasters took place.

The Moroccan Labyrinth

November 2007 •Spanish

The Dawn of Kaiju Eiga

April 2019 •Spanish

Japan, 1954. A legend emerges from the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, devastated by atomic bombs in 1945. The creature's name is Godzilla. The film that tells its story is the first of kaiju eiga, the giant monster movies.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley

June 2006 •English

In 1920s Ireland young doctor Damien O'Donovan prepares to depart for a new job in a London hospital. As he says his goodbyes at a friend's farm, British Black and Tans arrive, and a young man is killed. Damien joins his brother Teddy in the Irish Republican Army, but political events are soon set in motion that tear the brothers apart.

Far from Men

January 2015 •French

A French teacher in a small Algerian village during the Algerian War forms an unexpected bond with a dissident who is ordered to be turned in to the authorities.

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 Outlaws

January 1969 •French

In prison in colonial Algeria, shortly after the end of the Second World War, three indigenous cellmates make out. Once free, they attack the authority represented by the triad of the boss, the gendarme and the administrator. “Living the colonial condition,” confided Tewfik Farès, “is something! It’s not sociologically or historically speaking. It’s life. And I think that’s all there in it. [...] For a hundred and thirty years, we wait. We hold back. We push back. We hope. At the same time, on different occasions, there are skirmishes, unrest.

Zulu Dawn

May 1979 •English

In 1879, the British suffer a great loss at the Battle of Isandlwana due to incompetent leadership.

Camus, l'icône de la révolte

January 2020 •French

Albert Camus, who died 60 years ago, continues to inspire defenders of freedom and human rights activists around the world today. The Nobel Prize winner for literature is one of the most widely read French-language writers in the world. He continues to embody the rebellious man who opposes all forms of oppression and tyranny while refusing to compromise his human values.

The Writer from a Country Without Bookstores

December 2019 •Spanish

The ruthless dictator Teodoro Obiang has ruled Equatorial Guinea with an iron hand since 1979. Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel is the most translated Equatoguinean writer, but he had to flee the country in 2011, after starting a hunger strike denouncing the crimes of the dictatorship. Since then, he has lived in Spain, feeling that, despite the risks, he must return and fight the monster with words.